The Grey Wolf

In Armand’s room at the monastery, he and Jean-Guy eat snacks and talk about Simon opening the mail. They think that Simon is bored, not evil. They decide that their next step is to find Sebastien. Armand suggests threatening a search of the monastery to get Simon talking, but getting a warrant would tip off the compromised agent at the Sûreté. They brainstorm ideas about connections between Charles, Dom Philippe, and Jeanne. Jean-Guy realizes that some numbers on Charles’s map are dates. They decide to turn in for the night, and Armand texts his love to Reine-Marie.

However, Armand can’t sleep, so he gets up at four o’clock in the morning, showers, and goes for a walk, taking the map and the two halves of the note with him. He finds the keeper of the keys and asks about the mail. The keeper says that he gives it to Simon and doesn’t remember seeing anything from the Vatican. The keeper opens the doors so that Armand can walk around the lake. As he walks, a wolf sneaks up on him and starts growling. Jean-Guy appears, scaring off the wolf. Armand updates him about the keeper. When they get back to the door, the morning lauds have begun, and the monk isn’t there to unlock it.

As Armand and Jean-Guy walk around the lakeshore again, the pilot checks out the plane. Jean-Guy asks about the wolf in the name of the monastery. Armand doesn’t immediately tell Jean-Guy his painful memories of learning about the monastery’s name. Instead, they talk about the letters. Armand thinks that a different keeper was there when Dom Philippe was abbot and that Simon appointed someone who would give him the mail when the abbot left. Armand also thinks that Philippe purposely left Simon in charge so that he would tell Armand about the letters. The two detectives decide that they must find the old keeper. The pilot comments about the size of the fish in the lake, and Armand says that Jesus was “a fisher of men” and asks the pilot to give them a half hour before departure (189).

When Armand returns to his room, he sees Simon looking under the bed for the map. Armand and Simon go to the abbot’s office. There, Jean-Guy is finishing up with Frere Roland, the previous keeper of the keys. After Roland leaves, Armand questions Simon about the letters he opened. The letter to Sebastien was vague but mentioned a plot and insisted that Sebastien come to Rome; it was from the Office of the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Inquisition). Every letter “B” was underscored. Then, Armand asks about the letter to Dom Philippe. It was from Sebastien, asking the abbot to meet. Simon had never seen a map of Quebec before and was surprised by the amount of water. Philippe used to quote the Psalms, which refer to “a dry and parched land where there is no water” (195).

When Simon refuses to answer more questions, Armand threatens to get a search warrant. He believes that Simon knows where Charles’s laptop and notebooks are. Simon still refuses to share the information he has, and Armand tells him to pack because he’s being arrested and leaving with them. While Simon is out of the room, Jean-Guy updates Armand about his interview with Roland, who said that Dom Philippe received a package a few days before he left the monastery. Armand thinks it was from Charles. They decide to learn more about Sebastien through the Dominicans.

Jean-Guy is upset at the church and points out that Armand rarely attends services but crosses himself frequently. Jean-Guy thinks the Dominicans are still running an inquisition and are behind the plot to poison the drinking water. Armand doubts that this is true and thinks the monks might have gone to the Sûreté but encountered an agent who passed the recipe and information to Jeanne. He internally wonders about her plan and motives.

As Simon says his farewells, Armand tells Jean-Guy about the name of the monastery. When the Gilbertines came there, they befriended the local Cree people. The Cree chief passed down a story from his grandfather about two wolves inside him. One was gray and kind; the other was black and vengeful. The one who won was the one he fed. Armand thinks that they’re looking for a gray wolf and a black wolf: someone trying to stop the plot and the person in charge of the plot. Simon, Jean-Guy, and Armand board the plane. As they fly, Armand looks at the water and forests below.

Isabelle meets the plane when it lands. After introducing Simon, Armand whispers to Isabelle that the monk is under protective custody because of the information he has. Isabelle sent pictures of Charles’s map to a contact in Winnipeg and discovered that the numbers (other than dates) represented applications and approvals for companies to “exceed their pollution limits” (208), as well as approvals for Americans to buy more stock than Canadians in Canadian companies. Such approvals would come from Lauzon, Jeanne’s boss. In addition, Isabelle had Charles’s map compared with Chalifoux’s map. Only some overlap was found: For instance, the pin in the monastery lake appears only on Charles’s map.

Armand orders Isabelle to go to Rome to search for Sebastien and the monk who sent him the first letter. Jean-Guy has the task of discovering the letter-writing monk’s identity to help Isabelle locate him in person. Armand will look into Dom Philippe’s friends and family. He has doubts about his plan to withhold information about the threat to the water supply. Simon volunteers information about Philippe’s one family photo: He’s with a woman around his age and a young girl in front of a desolate house. Armand admits that he’s going to talk to Jeanne.

As Isabelle flies to Rome, Jean-Guy visits the records office of the Dominicans in Quebec. Armand calls the head of counterintelligence in the UK, Sherry. She asks him to send what he knows about the potential threat to the water, and she says that she hasn’t heard anything about “chartreuse” as a code name for an operation. However, she knows that to get poison into a water-treatment plant, it would have to be in a travel-sized bottle, such as for pills or shampoo, and the poison of choice would likely be botulinum. A significant amount of botulinum was lost after the fall of the Soviet Union (and its bioweapons department). Some toxins have also gone missing from the US and possibly the United Nations. Less of the anti-toxin, BAT, is available than botulinum. Sherry suggests that Armand contact a mutual friend.

When Armand arrives back at the Sûreté, he’s called into Toussaint’s office. She demands to know why he took the plane to the monastery. He tells her the truth about it being marked on Charles’s map and lies about what he discovered there, claiming to have run into a dead end. After the meeting, he takes pictures of the map on his office wall and heads to the Archdiocese. Jean-Guy calls him, saying that Armand’s grandchildren have stuck marshmallows to his ceiling and that Sebastien taught at the seminary in Washington, DC. Jean-Guy plans to go there. Armand thinks that the pollution and sales marked on the map might be a cover for the real plan of poisoning the water, so they should investigate both options. After the call, Armand sends a secure message to a Washington contact to help Jean-Guy.

Armand then calls David Lavigne, assistant commissioner of the RCMP. David says that he was removed from the committee on terrorism and that the deputy prime minister went on a trip to a Mafia-controlled city. David claims that he knows nothing about the sale of Canadian resources to Americans. He agrees to help Armand look for hackers who could get into the water-treatment plants’ systems and ranks the six plants in order of likelihood for attack.

In Archbishop Fleury’s office, Armand remembers the last time they met, when Fleury officiated funerals for Armand’s agents. This time, they discuss Dom Philippe. Fleury went to seminary school with Philippe and knows that Philippe took on that name when he became a monk but doesn’t know the monk’s real name. Fleury also recalls that Philippe was an excellent singer. Fleury’s assistant puts Armand in touch with Philippe’s best friend from seminary school.

In Washington, Jean-Guy meets with Sister Joan at the seminary. She says that Sebastien was a teacher there and had two close friends. The three friends got in trouble for “a common passion” (232), which Jean-Guy later learns was singing karaoke, and Sebastien was fired. The other two left the seminary, and Jean-Guy, based on Joan’s expression, infers that one went to Rome.

Meanwhile, Armand meets with Philippe’s best friend, Father David (whose birth name is Jean Beauchemin), in Saint-Alphonse-de-Granby. David tells Armand that Philippe’s birth name is Yves Rousseau and shows Armand some letters that David and Yves exchanged many years ago. In one is a copy of the photo that Simon described, and David clarifies that the other people in the picture are Yves’s sister and niece, who are from Blanc-Sablon. Yves wrote about his favorite rock by the lake near his home. David says that he would have given his passport to Yves had he asked for it, and he allows Armand to borrow the letters. Armand wonders if he knows the identities of the gray wolf and the black wolf.

In a hotel bar, Jean-Guy meets with Armand’s Washington contact, General Albert Whitehead, former chair of the joint chiefs of staff. They drink Shirley temples as Jean-Guy tells Whitehead about the case.

Back in Three Pines, Armand embraces Reine-Marie and sees the marshmallows on the ceiling. She jokes about running away, starting a bookstore, and hiding until the grandchildren are in their twenties as the grandchildren argue. Ruth helps with the children, but Annie and Daniel escape to the bistro. Armand goes to the bistro and gives Annie and Daniel $5 to go back to the house and relieve Reine-Marie. After they leave, Armand asks Olivier about the bottle of chartreuse, and Olivier says that he threw it in the recycling bin. Armand finds the bottle intact in the bin.

Meanwhile, Whitehead offers to send Jean-Guy and his team information about potential terrorist groups. Whitehead says that the clues Philippe left Armand are a “mud map,” explaining that drawing in the mud was how explorers communicated on trails. However, Whitehead doesn’t know about “chartreuse” as a code among terrorists. He notes that an attack on drinking water is one of his organization’s greatest fears because of the extensive damage it would do to citizens. It would cause chaos, disrupt the public’s trust in the government, and potentially lead to a coup; this is what the attackers want. When Jean-Guy asks if the US president could be involved, Whitehead says no and leaves.

Armand buys a new bottle of chartreuse and, with the seller, compares it to Philippe’s bottle. Hers has an “E” on it that indicates it’s for export, while Philippe’s doesn’t, meaning that it was purchased where it was made.

Armand sends a message to Isabelle, telling her to head to the Carthusian monastery Grand Chartreuse in France if she has no more leads in Rome. He then calls Claude Dussault, former head of the Paris police, asking him to accompany Isabelle and look for Sebastien and for a Dominican monk whose name they don’t yet know. After the call, Armand texts Isabelle and updates her about meeting Claude. Next, Armand books a flight to Blanc-Sablon and goes to the bistro.

When he and Reine-Marie leave, they walk around the village green, and he updates her about the case. Reine-Marie is concerned that Armand still hasn’t told anyone. He admits that he has his own doubts but is doing what he feels is right. When they get back to their house, he asks her about underscoring of the letter “B.” His grandson, Henri, sings “letter B” to the tune of “Let It Be” by The Beatles, which he heard on Sesame Street.

Armand calls Jean-Guy and tells him to ask Sister Joan about the Beatles song used on Sesame Street for the letter “B.” When Jean-Guy asks why, Armand hypothesizes that the monks watched Sesame Street to comfort themselves when stressed in seminary and that their shared passion was for singing.

Armand receives a phone call from an agent at the Sûreté and learns the name of the dead SUV driver: Paolo Parisi. He’s Sicilian, and his parents have worked against the Mafia. Armand orders the agent to look further into the Parisi family. After ending the call, he considers updating Tardiff but decides against it. He plays cribbage with his children and grandchildren until Jean-Guy calls. He tells Armand that the nun and two monks got in trouble for singing in karaoke bars while wearing their ecclesiastical robes.

Armand tells Daniel about Jeanne’s call. Daniel thinks that Armand should call Jeanne back and see what she wants. Armand doesn’t feel comfortable telling Daniel about the threat to the water-treatment plants yet. Daniel accepts Armand’s silence about the case and says that he trusts Armand more than Armand trusts him.

Meanwhile, Isabelle goes to the Curia offices in the Vatican. Mother Beatrice greets her, but they don’t speak any of the same languages. Therefore, Beatrice finds a nun who speaks English, Sister Irene, to talk to Isabelle. Isabelle’s cover is that she’s writing a piece about women rising to power in the church. She learns that Irene is from Cleveland and worked at the seminary in Washington. When Isabelle asks about Sebastien, Irene looks hurt and says she doesn’t know him. Isabelle locks herself and the nun in a bathroom and calls Armand, updating him about the Washington connection. Irene refuses to answer questions about Montreal’s drinking water or Grande Chartreuse. Armand asks Irene to sing “letter B” to the tune of “Let It Be.” This causes Irene to look like she has been hit.

Jean-Guy can’t reach Armand’s cell, so he calls Annie and asks her to give her phone to Armand. Jean-Guy found the karaoke bar where Sebastien, Irene, and a monk named Robert sang in their robes. Robert is a Carthusian at Grand Chartreuse, so Armand orders Isabelle to take Irene there with Claude Dussault. Isabelle says that it would take 10 hours to drive there, so Armand says he’ll use his personal funds to hire a helicopter. Reine-Marie overhears this and says that she’ll increase the limit on his credit card. Daniel and Annie offer their credit cards, and Armand ends the call. On Annie’s phone, Armand orders Jean-Guy to talk to Sister Joan and then return to Montreal. Armand updates Jean-Guy about his plan to go to Blanc-Sablon to talk to Dom Philippe’s family. After ending this call, Armand texts Shona, his vlogger nemesis, and asks her to meet for breakfast, doubting that he has made the right call.