Page 144

3 November Y.D.A.U. — phone calls · first-time reader guide · all scenes

When you've finished these pages: three things worth a second look, at the bottom.

No scene, no narrator: this is a one-page government document, an alphabetical tally of groups whose opposition to "Interdependence / Reconfiguration" two intelligence agencies rate as terrorist or extortionist, complete with a letter-code key (Q, E, S, V, VV). The book does this — drops a filed document between scenes and moves on. Nothing here needs decoding beyond the names, and two of the seven entries are already yours: you've met one group and heard another named. Thirty seconds of reading, if you let the codes do their work.

Terms, in order of appearance

séparatisteur (p. 144) — the document's own Frenchish coinage; the standard French word is séparatiste.
R.C.M.P. (p. 144) — real: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's federal police — the Mounties.
U.S.O.U.S. (p. 144) — acronym of the United States Office of Unspecified Services, Steeply's agency (pp. 88–90).
Interdependence / Reconfiguration (p. 144) — the U.S.–Canada continental rearrangement; so far the book has given only the names (pp. 92–93), not the details.
Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents (p. 144) — Marathe's cell, the wheelchair assassins (p. 89; endnote 39).
Le Bloc Québecois / Le Parti Québecois (p. 144) — real electoral parties: actual federal and provincial Québec-sovereignty parties that run candidates and win seats.
Montcalm / Papineau (p. 144) — real history behind the "Fils de" names: the general who died defending Québec in 1759; the leader of the 1837 Patriote rebellion.
Le Front de la Libération de la Québec (p. 144) — a real group: the F.L.Q. kidnapped and killed in the actual October Crisis of 1970; Steeply named it on p. 126.

After you read: three things

1. Real parties are filed with assassin cells. Le Bloc Québecois and Le Parti Québecois are actual, legal, ballot-box parties; here they sit in one flat taxonomy with groups rated Extremely Violent, all "TERRORIST / EXTORTIONIST IN CHARACTER." The page flattens everything to deadpan, on purpose. Note also the one non-Québecois entry: the Calgarian Pro-Canadian Phalanx opposes Reconfiguration from the opposite, pro-Canada direction.

2. First by alphabet, worst by rating. Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents — the A.F.R., Marathe's own cell from the mountainside conversations (p. 89) — draws one of only two VV ratings. The other VV is the F.L.Q., the group Steeply accused Marathe of possibly gaming for on p. 126.

3. You've already met this roster's handler — dead in a kitchen chair. Page 59 described Guillaume DuPlessis as liaison and "general leash-holder" for "the half-dozen or so malevolent and mutually antagonistic groups of Québecer Separatists and Albertan ultra-rightists." Count the entries: six Québecois groups plus one Calgarian — Calgary being Alberta. This tally is that half-dozen-or-so, itemized, and since the pp. 55–60 burglary went wrong, every line of it is off the leash.

Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.