For Better And For Worse
Chapter 64

Fountain bar, basement.

Gauthier and Corneille come across John’s team. They return, fleeing.

John: Stop! This is John, I have Gauthier in mind.

Boris: capture the living!

John: We follow them.

They pursue them and their men come before them opening fire on John’s team. Gauthier and Corneille take the opportunity to enter a room. Oscar and Didier arrive and join the party. Bullets are whistling everywhere. When the ammunition is finished, the brigade intervenes to arrest all of Corneille’s men. Paramedics arrive to tend to the injured.

Léon: Gauthier and Corneille are still missing.

Boris: Search all the rooms one by one.

The agents begin to search the rooms. An agent named Carrick enters the room where Gauthier and Corneille are. They attack him by surprise, disarm him and knock him out. Gauthier gets dressed in his outfit and leaves the room. He faces Leon.

Gauthier: RAS in this room.

Léon: ok, let’s continue the research.

They search all the rooms but there is no trace of Gauthier and Corneille. However, they found a large quantity of heroin as well as cash.

Oscar: Commander, come and see!

The two commanders accompanied by Didier, John and Kevin go into the room and discover the drugs and the money.

In the meantime, Gauthier dressed as an agent takes advantage of their absence and arrests one of Corneille’s men and goes out with him. Meanwhile inside.

Boris: name of God!

Léon: I think that’s all his stock is there, at least what’s left.

Corneille opens the door a little to look outside and there are still agents everywhere so he closes it behind him.

Boris: and what about him and Cornelius?

John: We searched everywhere, no trace of them. They remain untraceable.

Boris: It’s impossible! They must be here, search again!

Léon: I’ll take care of it.

Léon replaces agents to do the search again while Boris and the others seize the drugs and transport them outside. The excavations continue. Léon arrives in front of a room which is blocked. He opens the door with a swipe of his slipper and enters slowly. His weapon goes in first so Cornelius strikes his hand to disarm him. So they fight with their hands. Léon gives him a violent blow to the head which knocks him to the ground. When he picked up his gun and was about to point it at him again, he hit the gun with his shoe which fell in front of Carrick who was still unconscious. As for them, they still continue to fight. Corneille hits Léon with his slipper and he falls and at the same time comes to pick him up and headbutt him. He then removes his helmet and recognizes him.

Cornelius: Leon!

Léon: yes it’s me.

Cornelius: you traitor, you are the vigilante!

Léon: no, but I knew him.

Léon also headbutts him and he falls. He approaches him and hits his foot with his slipper and Léon falls on his stomach. Cornelius gets up and stays behind him. He grabs her neck by the crook of her arm in an attempt to pull the stranger away. It is at this moment that Carrick wakes up, takes the weapon and points it at the back of Corneille’s neck.

Carrick: Don’t move! Release him! Get up! Very slowly and turn towards me.

He does so and Carrick moves away a little.

Carrick: Now move away a little and kneel!

He does so and Léon gets up to stop him.

Leon: Carrick, what is that?

Carrick: Gauthier, he took my outfit.

Leon: shit! Attention, alert to all units, Gauthier is dressed as a brigade agent, I repeat Gauthier is dressed as a brigade agent.

Outside, Gauthier also receives the alert and gets into a brigade vehicle. An agent approaches.

Perfect: where are you going?

Gauthier: I have to take the suspects to the brigade.

Perfect: the commander hasn’t given the order yet.

Gauthier: oh well, I…

Perfect: go down and remove your helmet. Gauthier is dressed like us, we have to search everyone.

Gauthier comes down and hits Perfect and gets back in the car. He drives off and other officers open fire but he flees.

Édouard: attention, all units, Gauthier flees in a brigade car. He headed south, I started chasing him.

Having heard the alert, Commander Léon and Boris immediately leave the basement. They get into two different vehicles and also start chasing Gauthier, the agents Edouard, parfait, Oscar and Didier already being in pursuit. Thanks to Edouard’s information, they take shortcuts and appear directly behind Gauthier. Meanwhile, in the basement, John picks up Corneille and they go out. There’s nothing left in the basement, all the drugs and money have been brought outside so all the officers come out.

On the other side of the street, the chase continues. Arriving at an intersection, a large transporter was passing and Gauthier accelerated to cross the road before it passed. Léon passes under the truck and the others were forced to brake and let him pass before restarting the race. Léon is only a few meters from Gauthier. This turns into a small corridor on the left to cut the road ahead. Léon turns behind him. Gauthier cuts the road and turns left then he quickly makes a detour and places his car in front of the exit of the corridor then he goes down quickly and coming at full speed, Léon hits his car and has an accident. He was injured and had no strength left. Gauthier therefore fled on foot. Boris and the others arrive and pick up Léon. Boris orders them to take him back to the brigade for treatment while he and two others return to the fountain bar. It was only at his order that they evacuated the premises to return to the brigade.

Anti-drug squad.

Once he arrived at the hospital, Léon was urgently treated in the infirmary. Shortly after, Commander Boris and the others arrive with the arrested men along with the drugs and money. These were placed in the seal room. As for the suspects, they were locked in the cells except Corneille and Prosper who were taken to interrogation rooms. Boris will question Cornelius and John will question Prosper. Oscar tasks Marlene with searching Prosper’s computer.

Gauthier’s home.

Gauthier succeeds in summoning the brigade and arrives at his home, a house where no one knows about it. He goes into the shower to wash his face. Then he goes to the kitchen and makes himself some omelets to eat. He then takes a bottle of beer to drink. After that, he goes to his secret room, removes his mask and becomes Bruno again. He comes out and goes to take a shower. He then wears new clothes and goes to take his car to go home to his wife.

Anti-drug squad.

Boris questions Corneille, John questions Prosper.

Boris: tell me what Gauthier’s true identity is and tell me where I can replace him?

He looks at him without saying anything.

*

Prosper: I don’t know Mr. Gauthier, I just know Corneille.

John: And you really think I’m going to believe that?

Prosper: I’m just a computer technician.

*

Boris grabs Corneille’s head and bangs it on the table.

Boris: Maybe you think we’re playing?

Corneille: I don’t know what real identity you’re talking about, Commander, and I don’t know where Gauthier lives.

Boris: we know that Gauthier is a mask he wears to hide his true face.

Corneille: Well, thank you for the info then.

*

John: As a computer scientist, and a qualified one at that, I know you have more information we need on Gauthier.

Prosper: I work for Corneille, I don’t know any Gauthier.

John: fine, if you want the hard way, we’ll go for it.

*

Corneille: listen, I work for a drug trafficker known by the name and face of Gauthier, if it’s a mask or not, I don’t care.

Boris: I want to know where he is.

Cornelius: I don’t know.

Boris: very good, we will do it again and Commander Léon will take care of it.

He goes out. John hits Prosper but he doesn’t say anything so he leaves him too.

Boris: were you able to get anything out?

John: Nothing yet. He will eventually speak.

The commander goes to see Léon in the infirmary.

Léon: tell me you arrested Gauthier.

Boris: unfortunately no.

Léon: all this work time for nothing?

Boris: it’s not for nothing. Thanks to you, we were able to recover all his drugs and arrest his men. Even though he’s on the loose, he’s dead broke. We won’t hear about drugs for a while. As for him, we will continue to question his henchmen and we will eventually replace him.

Léon: It’s not really a victory.

Boris: I know. Come on, rest!

The commander leaves and frees his men. They lock up Cornelius and Prosper. Work will resume tomorrow.

Krist’s home.

Early in the morning, the newspaper distributor passes Krist’s house and drops off the newspaper. Stella goes out to get it and reads on the headline: the city’s biggest drug cartel dismantled.

She reads a few sentences and runs back inside to replace Isabelle.

Stella: Isabelle, read this.

She takes the newspaper to read.

Newspaper: Last night the anti-drug squad raided the fountain bar which appears to have been the hidden haunt of the biggest drug trafficker known as Gauthier.

Isabelle: he was the one who got Krist locked up.

Stella: yes, continue.

Newspaper: several arrests took place, including the arrest of the bar owner, Mr. Corneille. In addition, a huge quantity of drugs and dirty money was seized. As for the drug trafficker Gauthier, he managed to escape. The authorities are doing everything they can to replace him but he is now nowhere to be found…

Isabelle: no, no, how did he escape? No !

Stella: calm down Isabelle!

Isabelle: how can I calm down Stella, only he can exonerate my husband.

Stella: they arrested his men, they are going to question them and they will replace him, you will see.

Isabelle: I hope Stella, I hope so.

Stella: we will have more details tomorrow. I’m going to prepare breakfast.

She starts cooking, Isabelle starts to cry. After breakfast, Stella goes to the university for classes to resume.

Bruno’s.

On the other side at Bruno’s, they also receive the newspaper.

Florence: you saw that darling, our streets will be able to be a little healthier.

Bruno: certainly my love.

He k****s her on the shoulder and turns, his head in the clouds because of his things submerged in the water.

At Célestin’s.

Célestin also received the newspaper and once he read it, he was happy but his joy disappeared when he read that Gauthier escaped. He plans to go to the brigade for further clarification.