The Last Witness

ONE

February 11th, Montreal, Canada.

‘Two minutes over now. He’s late.’

‘Don’t worry, he’ll show.’ Michel Chenouda sounded confident, but inside it was just one more worry to stack with the mountain of others that had built excruciatingly over the last hour of the set-up.

Four of his RCMP team were with him in the 2^nd floor of the warehouse overlooking the St Lawrence dockside, the other three in an unmarked car around the corner, and dead centre in their night-sight binoculars’ frame was their mark Tony Savard, waiting on Roman Lacaille and his men. It was -7?C that night and Savard’s breath showed heavy on the air. Three years tracking in the shadows of the Lacailles, Montreal’s leading crime family, and now hopefully, finally, Michel would nail them.

The Lacailles had put up a strong legitimate business front over recent years, but Chenouda was convinced they were secretly behind Eastern Canada’s largest drugs supply network. Then eleven months ago with the murder of Eric Leduc, one of the network’s key men, he had the confirmation he wanted: Roman Lacaille was responsible for the murder, had pulled the trigger himself in a fit of rage. They heard it first from the car’s driver when pressured over a vice bust; but he refused to officially testify and finger Roman Lacaille, and five months later he was dead. A ‘boating’ accident. That left only two other witnesses: Tony Savard and Georges Donatiens. But Donatiens was too much ‘family’ for them to hope he’d testify, so they’d piled on the pressure with Savard: if he didn’t come forward, he’d be next to go the same way. Finally Savard cut a deal.

The only problem was that unlike Donatiens — who was in the back of the car when Leduc was shot — Savard was standing outside the car on watch. He hadn’t seen Roman Lacaille actually pull the trigger. There was also the problem of Roman Lacaille’s likely plea of self-defence.

The plan now was therefore a meeting with Roman Lacaille to discuss general business, and almost jokingly, by-the-way, Savard would comment about the mess of cleaning up after Leduc. ‘Couldn’t you have shot him out of the car? We were still finding bits of him there two days later.’

Once Roman Lacaille opened up about the shooting, Savard would then press a bit about the gun on the floor not being Leduc’s normal piece to try and break his self-defence story, and they’d get it all on tape. Enough hopefully to…

‘Attends! Something’s happening. Vehicle approaching… fast! But it’s not Lacaille’s Beamer, it’s a black van. Stopping. Back doors opening… two men getting out. Something’s wrong. They’re wearing ski masks!’ Chac, his closest aide in the RCMP, was main look-out. Chac moved quickly aside and let Michel Chenouda look through the binoculars.

Michel watched as a startled Tony Savard was bundled into the back of the van, looking sharply over his shoulder; a silent plea for help. Michel reached for the radio mike.

‘Move now! Two men have just grabbed Savard. Black Chevy Venture. No sign of Lacaille, and we’re not even sure it’s his men. So get close so that you’re ready to cut in on them when I say.’ Michel had switched to English for the command. The driver, Mark, was only three years up from Ottawa, and Michel liked to use English with those for whom, like him, French was a second language. Now more than ever: he couldn’t risk even a split-second delay for the driver to understand.

As the back-up car swung into view, a faint night mist swirling opaque in its beam, the van was already heading off. A gap of maybe eighty yards between them, Michel estimated, but closing quickly with the car having gained momentum. Sixty yards, fifty…

But as they came to the end of the warehouse block and the first inter-section, Michel watched in horror a large double trailer cut suddenly across just after the van had passed. The squad car braked hard and slued to an angle, stopping just yards short.

They beeped, flashed their lights and shouted furiously, but the truck driver simply lifted his palms and shouted back in defensive protest. Only when badges were frantically waved and their cherry siren was put on the roof and fired up, did he start moving; though even then only slowly. The van was long gone.

At that moment, Savard’s voice came over clearly on sound. ‘Jesus! What’s happening… what’s going on?’

Only silence returned. Nobody answered.

Michel watched the screen-finder dot recede rapidly out of the dockside, continuing straight for a moment before bleeping and flashing at a tangent. ‘They’ve turned off either at Lafontaine or Ontario, heading east,’ he hissed into the radio-mike. ‘Looks like they’re headed downtown. We’re going to cut across and back you up.’

Michel grabbed the screen-finder and directed two of his men to come with him, the other to stay with Chac. They took the stairs at a flying run, two and three at a time. Michel’s heart pounded hard and heavy, almost in time with the screen dot. His breath rasped short; he was heavier than he’d have liked, and at moments like this it told.

Michel took the passenger seat, and the youngest of them, a lanky, twenty-nine year old Montreal anglophile named Phil Reeves, drove. His heavier, twelve years older, bulldog-expressioned Quebecois partner, Maury Legault, sat in the back. In age, build and countenance, Michel was practically a hybrid between them. Except that in certain lights and at certain angles, his high cheekbones and the slight almond slope of his dark brown eyes gave away his part Mohawk ancestry. But now as they sped off and he caught his own reflection briefly in the side window, he looked as hangdog as Maury. Defeated. Three years work funnelled now into only frantic minutes, and it was all fast slipping away.

Michel watched the dot bleep deeper. As they approached Lafontaine, he could tell now that the van was on Ontario, the next cross street. He raised Chac on the radio-phone.

‘Anything on sound?’

‘Nothing significant. Some rustling and movement, traffic sounds in the background, but no voices. Nothing since Savard asked ‘what’s happ-’’

Even over the radio mike, Michel heard what had stopped Chac mid-sentence: a faint background crunching and a strangled, guttural ‘Maird!’ followed by some indiscernible mumbling from Savard. At that same instant, the screen-finder dot disappeared.

‘No, no… please no.’ Michel closed his eyes for a second as he made the breathless plea. He swallowed hard, fearing the worst with his next question. ‘Have you still got sound, Chac?’

‘Yeah… still there. Heavier rustling now, and Savard’s breathing’s more laboured. Now he’s coughing… or sounds like him. The others wouldn’t come over that clearly.’

Michel slowly let out his breath and opened his eyes again. Thank God at least they still had that. The directional signal had been in Savard’s watch, the wire — because they knew Savard would likely be searched vigorously by Lacaille — was sewn discreetly into his coat lapel.

‘They’ve obviously only smashed his watch. Let’s just pray they don’t find the sound bug.’ But he knew it was practically worthless unless Savard’s captor’s actually spoke, gave some clue of where they were headed. ‘Link me in directly to the wire, Chac. We’re running blind here. Maybe I’ll be able to pick up something from background traffic and city sounds.’

As soon as the wire feed came over the radio, Michel turned it up. The hiss of static and faint rustling filled the car. Michel immersed himself in it, blotting out completely the surrounding traffic noise as Phil sped along Rue Ontario. After a moment he could pick out the rise and fall of Tony Savard’s breathing. A faint cough, a swallow. Then a few seconds later Tony Savard’s voice came over, loud and distorted.

‘Where are we going? I can’t see nothing with this hood on?’

Michel clenched a fist tight. Savard was trying to tell them what he could. No answer returned. Michel honed in on background sounds beyond Savard’s breathing: traffic drone, a horn beeping, faint distant siren wail. Michel turned the radio down. He couldn’t hear the siren himself from outside, which worried him. It meant that they weren’t anywhere close to Savard.

Michel patched in to the other car. ‘Mark, can you hear a siren from where you are?’

Moment’s pause, then: ‘No, nothing here.’

‘We’ve lost directional, but we’ve still got wire sound. Any fix on where they’re headed from where you are?’

‘We followed what you last gave us, east on Ontario. But no sign of them. They gained a good half mile when the truck blocked us. They could be anywhere.’

‘Okay. I’ll let you know if we pick up anything useful on the wire.’

Back to Savard’s breathing. The siren had now faded from the background. Then after a moment in gruff Quebecois, the first comment from Savard’s captors.

‘Where’s our drugs money, Tony?’

‘Quoi?… What drugs money? I don’t know nothing about that. I was there for a meet with Roman Lacaille.’

‘Don’t know the man personally. Now, again — where’s our money, Tony?’

‘I don’t know… don’t know what you’re…’

Chac’s voice crashed in. ‘More action here. Roman Lacaille’s Beamer’s just rolled up. He’s getting out with another man, bold as you like… looking around.’

Michel’s stomach fell. Whatever was going to happen with Savard in the van, Lacaille was distancing himself from it. ‘I turned up as arranged, but he’d already gone. And half a dozen RCMPs know it couldn’t have been me, because they were watching me through binoculars.’

‘Now he’s lifting his arms in a “where is he?” gesture.’

Michel could picture Lacaille gloating as he made the gesture. He closed his eyes and solemnly nodded. ‘Okay. Nothing we can do with him, though. And he knows it. Put me back to the wire.’ Staying with Lacaille wasn’t productive.

‘…last time. Where is it, Tony?’

‘I told you… I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

A heavy pause, background traffic drone returning, Savard’s breathing laboured, expectant. Then finally: ‘Well… if he’s not going to talk.’

Michel tried to discern what was happening from the next sounds: heavier rustling, movement closer to Savard, then a guttural ‘Espece d’encoule! What the fu… uuugh,’ receding quickly into two more grunts and heavier breathing from Savard, now raspier, more nasal. Michel guessed that Savard’s mouth had been bound. The rustling and movement receded, then after a second a fresh voice came from the front.

‘Bon. So, where are we going to do this?’

‘I thought Saint Norbert.’

‘No, not good. The car park there’s only five storeys. He might survive the drop. Could still be alive and talking when he hits the deck.’

Michel’s hopes leapt: some fix on where they were headed at last! But at the same time the reason for the binding became clear, and he felt for Savard: they knew he’d start shouting and screaming at their new turn in conversation. Michel could hear Savard hyperventilating with fear, muffled grunts mixed with rapid nasal wheezing.

‘So where would you suggest?’

‘Place Philips car park. Eight floors, straight down. He won’t survive that.’

Savard’s grunting and wheezing was almost out of control, combined now with some heavy rustling and thudding. He was obviously writhing around in protest, the only movement he was left with.

Michel wished that he could reach out and hug and reassure Savard: Don’t worry. We know where they’re headed now. We’ll get to them before they can throw you.

Phil turned and dropped two blocks down to Rene Levesque to make better time heading into the city centre, and Michel alerted Mark on the radio phone. ‘We just got it on the wire that that’s where they’re headed.’

‘Saint Catherine entrance or Philips?’

‘We don’t know. You take Saint Catherine, we’ll take Philips.’

Silence again. Only the sound over the wire of Savard’s muffled, laboured breathing as Phil floored it through the night-time streets, touching seventy.

Within the cocoon of darkness of the hood, Savard’s terror had reached a peak. He’d found breathing difficult with the restriction of the hood as it was, had felt his own hot breath bouncing back at him; but now with something bound tight around his mouth over the outside, pushing the cloth in, it was practically impossible. With each breath the cloth felt as if it was sucking in, gagging him, and the binding had also pulled the hood tight against his nose. Upon hearing he’d be thrown, he’d writhed and banged about; partly in fear, partly in vain hope of catching the attention of cars or people they passed. But as the blood pounding through his head hit a hot white crescendo and he felt nauseous and almost blacked out, he stopped. He reminded himself of the wire. They’d handled him roughly bundling him into the van and tying his hands and feet, but he was pretty sure it was still there. Michel had no doubt heard where they were headed.

But with two entrances and five sections to the car park, what were the chances of Michel and his men getting to him in time? They could already be two minutes behind as it was, and could easily lose another couple of minutes finding the right section of car park. It did him little good if Michel caught up with his captors after he was thrown.

The night-time streets flashed by Michel’s window, with most cars pulling hurriedly over with the sound of their approaching siren. But half the time Michel kept his eyes closed, immersing himself deeper into the sounds on the wire: Savard’s fractured, muffled breathing falling almost in time with his own rapid pulse, feeling himself almost there alongside Savard to will home the message: we’ll be there, don’t worry. We’ll be there to stop them.

It took only just over three minutes before they hit the Place Philips entrance and started up. Mark had radioed in twenty seconds before as he entered on Saint Catherine Street, and was now winding furiously up towards the third floor. At Michel’s instruction, they’d both killed their sirens for the last few hundred yards of approach. Michel didn’t want Savard’s captors suddenly taking fright and shifting him somewhere else.

As Phil swung into the fifth floor, Michel heard over the wire the van stopping, a door opening, closing. Then the van’s back doors opening.

‘Okay. Should be good here.’

‘Yeah.’

Savard’s breathing again started to become more rapid, frantic. Brief writhing and thudding, and then some rustling and short muffled grunts from Savard. Michel pictured him being lifted out.

Michel clutched tight at the radio mike. Mark should be near the top now. ‘We’ve just heard the van stop — they’re taking Savard out. See anything from where you are?’

‘We’re just coming onto the eight now.’ Brief background squeal of tyres, then: ‘No… nothing on this first stretch.’

Michel drummed the flat of his left hand against the dashboard as they sped along the sixth and swung into the ramp for the seventh. ‘Come on!..’

Savard felt himself being carried away from the van, heard his carrier’s short shuffling footsteps, but they were crunching slightly, as if they had crepe soles? Then after a few yards they paused and his back was partly rested on the thighs of the man behind.

‘Okay, one last chance, Tony…’

Savard felt the binding around his mouth being untied and pulled free. His frantic breathing eased a bit without the constriction.

‘…Where’s our money?’

‘I told you, I don’t you… I don’t know,’ he gasped. ‘Please, you’ve got to believe me.’

Phil squealed up the last part of the ramp to the eighth. Michel’s eyes darted rapidly around as the car straightened and sped along. He couldn’t see anything immediately, no sign of the van or Savard being carried. He pointed. ‘Maybe in the next section.’ Then, into the mike: ‘Anything where you are?’

‘No, nothing. We’ve already checked two sections. One more to go.’

Michel’s hand drummed the dashboard more frantically as Phil swung into the next section. From the voices over the wire, he knew there were probably only seconds left.

‘We haven’t got to believe anything, Tony. Last chance…’

‘Fuck’s sake, guys… I really don’t know,’ Savard spluttered.’ If I did, don’t you think I’d tell you.’

A second’s silence, then the other man’s voice. ‘Let’s get him closer to the edge. He’s not going to talk.’

Faint rustling and movement, repeated mumbled protests from Savard, then: ‘We’ll not clear this rail unless we swing him.’

‘Yeah…’

Savard lost it then, his protests and shouts of ‘No!’ hit screaming pitch as Michel imagined him being swung.

Mark’s voice came over the radio-phone. ‘Nothing here. We’ve searched every corner.’

‘Okay.’ Phil had just turned into the last section and Michel’s eyes swung wildly around. Savard’s screaming filled his head. He had to be somewhere here, somewhere… Suddenly his rapid dashboard drumming changed to a sharp slap. ‘Stop! Stop the car now! Stop!’

Phil screeched to a halt and Michel immediately swung his door open, listening.

‘…Two. On the count of three.’ The words were all but drowned out by Savard’s raucous screaming.

Michel could hear everything clearly over the wire, but from the surrounding car park sounds there was nothing. Yet Savard was screaming loud enough to be heard two blocks away. He didn’t even trouble to check with Mark; he’d have heard it from Mark’s section from where he was. Michel’s stomach fell, a chill running through him. Savard was nowhere nearby, he’d been taken somewhere else. There was nothing they could do to save him.

‘…Three!’

Savard had already pictured clearly in his mind the eight-floor drop, and his final scream as he was swung high for the last time rattled his throat raw. And then he was sailing free… his mind spinning fast-reel frames within the hood’s darkness to match his sensation of falling, his scream echoing down through the floors — praying that mercifully he’d black out halfway down — gaining momentum ever faster, faster, until… but the ground hit earlier than he expected. Maybe no more than a few yards. And it felt soft, his fall dampened by a cushioning of snow. His screaming faltered into nervous, staccato exhalations; he hardly dared believe that he was still alive.

‘That’s just a practice run, Tony. If you don’t tell us where the money is, we’re going to do it for real.’

Savard swallowed hard. The terror was quickly back. He wished now they had killed him. He couldn’t face going through the knife-edge fear and anticipation a second time.

He was shaking uncontrollably, his voice quavering. ‘Jesus, guys… Jesusss. I told you, I don’t know.’

‘No more chances, Tony. This is it…’

Savard felt himself being lifted again. ‘No! No!.. No!’

Michel could hardly bear to listen any more, knowing with certainty that there was nothing they could do to help. But the voices gripped him in almost morbid fascination — though now he was honing in more on background sounds: stillness, virtual silence. No traffic or background city drone. They should have picked up on that earlier when Savard was lifted from the van! If they had, they might have known they were wasting their time at Place Philips, might have been able to…

‘We haven’t got time to move him somewhere else to do this. I reckon we should finish it here.’

‘I don’t know…’ Brief hesitation from the other man, then resignedly on a faint sigh: ‘D’accord. I suppose you’re right. No point in dragging it out. He’s not going to talk.’

Savard felt himself being put back down on the ground. He was confused. Weren’t they at a high building somewhere? But then there wouldn’t be snow on the ground at Place Philips car park — which also explained why Michel and his men hadn’t caught up with him. For the first time Savard also tuned in to the virtual silence around. Where was he?

Michel could almost feel Savard’s surprise coming across in waves with his screaming having subsided into rapid, fractured breathing. From background sounds, Michel judged they were outside the city by at least a few miles; a deserted field or some waste-ground perhaps. Lacaille had duped them at every turn, had probably known about the wire and had set up a cassette in the van with the drone of city traffic to throw them. But then how had they replicated the ramps for Savard not to realize he wasn’t winding up through the levels of a car park?

Michel could picture the guns being taken out, the silencers attached, and he closed his eyes. Of all the moments Savard had protested and screamed in fear, now it would be justified; yet Savard merely continued to breathe heavily, like some confused, trapped animal. It seemed both ironic and unfair that his last moment should end like this.

And as the gun shots finally came, two in quick succession and another seconds later, Michel did Savard’s screaming for him. ‘No… Nooo!’ His eyes scrunched tight, his bellowing plea reverberated through the cavernous car park. And as its echo died, all that was left was the sound over the wire of footsteps crunching on snow, receding quickly away from Savard’s body.