by Louise Penny
When she pulled away, her face was streaked and her nose thick with slime. Gamache opened his parka and handed her his handkerchief.
“I told you there were only six gunmen in the factory,” she finally managed, the words coming in hiccups and gasps. “I only heard four, but I added some. In case. You taught me that. To be careful. I thought I was. But there were…” The tears began again, but this time they flowed freely, with no effort to stop them. “… more.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Yvette,” said Gamache. “You weren’t to blame for what happened.”
And he knew that was true. He remembered the moments in that factory. But not anything any video could capture. Armand Gamache remembered not the sights, nor the sounds. But how it felt. Seeing his young agents gunned down.
Holding Jean-Guy. Calling for the medics. Kissing him good-bye.
I love you, he’d whispered in Jean-Guy’s ear, before leaving him on the cold, bloody concrete floor.
The images might one day fade, but the feelings would live forever.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated.
“And it wasn’t yours, sir,” she said. “I wanted people to know. But I never stopped to think … The families … the other officers. I wanted to do it…”
She looked at him, her eyes begging him to understand.
“For me?” asked the Chief.
She nodded. “I was afraid you’d be blamed. I wanted them to know it wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry.”
He took her slimy hands and looked at her little face, blotched and wet with tears and mucus.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “We all make mistakes. And yours might not have been a mistake at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you hadn’t released that video we never would’ve found out what Superintendent Francoeur was doing. It might turn out to be a blessing.”
“Some fucking blessing,” she said. “Sir.”
“Yes.” He smiled and got into his car. “While I’m gone I want you to research Premier Renard. His background, his history. See if you can find anything linking him with Pierre Arnot or Chief Superintendent Francoeur.”
“Yessir. You know they’re probably tracking your car and your cell. Shouldn’t you leave your phone here and use someone else’s car?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Let me know what you find.”
“If you get a message from the zoo, you’ll know who it is.”
It seemed about right to the Chief. He drove out of the village, aware that he’d be detected as soon as he left, and counting on it.
THIRTY-SIX
For the second time in two days, Armand Gamache pulled into the parking lot of the penitentiary, but this time he got out, slamming the car door. He wanted there to be no question that he was there. He meant to be seen and he meant to get inside. At the gate he showed his credentials.
“I need to see one of your prisoners.”
A buzzer sounded and the Chief Inspector was admitted but shown no further than the waiting room. The officer on duty came out of a side room.
“Chief Inspector? I’m Captain Monette, the head guard. I wasn’t told you’d be coming.”
“I didn’t know until half an hour ago myself,” said Gamache, his voice friendly, examining the surprisingly young man standing in front of him. Monette could not have been thirty yet, and was solidly built. A linebacker.
“Something’s come up in a case I’m investigating,” Gamache explained, “and I need to see one of your high-security prisoners. He’s in the Special Handling Unit, I believe.”
Monette’s brow rose. “You’ll have to leave your weapon here.”
Gamache had expected that, though he’d hoped his seniority would give him a pass. Apparently not. The Chief took out his Glock and glanced around. Cameras were trained on him from every corner of the sterile room.
Could the alarm have already been raised? If so, he’d know in a moment.
Gamache placed the gun on the counter. The guard signed for it and gave the slip to the Chief.
Captain Monette gestured for Gamache to follow him down the corridor.
“Which prisoner do you want to see?”
“Pierre Arnot.”
The head guard stopped. “He’s a special case, as you know.”
Gamache smiled. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry, sir, but I really have very little time.”
“I need to speak with the warden about this.”
“No, you don’t,” said Gamache. “You’re welcome to if you feel it necessary, but most head guards have the authority to grant interviews, especially to investigating officers. Unless”—Gamache examined the young man in front of him—“you haven’t been given that authority?”
Monette’s face hardened. “I can do it, if I choose.”
“And why wouldn’t you choose?” asked Gamache. His face was curious, but there was a sharpening of the eyes and tone.
The man now looked insecure. Not afraid, but unsure what to do and Gamache realized he probably hadn’t been on the job for long.
“It really is very common,” said the Chief, his voice softening just a little. Not a patronizing tone, but a reassuring one, he hoped.
Come on, come on, thought Gamache, mentally counting the minutes. Not long before the alarm would be raised. He’d wanted to be followed to the SHU, but not caught there.
Monette examined him, then nodded. He turned back down the hall without a word.
Doors opened then clanged behind them as they moved deeper and deeper into the high-security pen. And as they walked, Chief Inspector Gamache wondered what had happened to Monette’s predecessor, and why they’d given the job of guarding some of the most dangerous criminals in Canada to someone so young and inexperienced.
Finally they entered an interview room, and Monette left Gamache alone.
He glanced around. Once again cameras were trained on him. Far from being disconcerting, his plan depended on those cameras.
He placed himself in front of the door and prepared to come face to face with Pierre Arnot for the first time in years.
Finally the door opened. Captain Monette entered first, then another guard came in escorting an older man in an orange prison uniform.
Chief Inspector Gamache looked at him. Then at the head guard.
“Who’s this?”
“Pierre Arnot.”
“But this isn’t Arnot.” Gamache walked up to the prisoner. “Who are you?”
“He’s Pierre Arnot,” said Monette firmly. “People change in prison. He’s been here for ten years. It’s him.”
“I tell you,” said Gamache, fighting, not totally successfully, to keep his temper in check. “This is not Pierre Arnot. I worked with him for years. I arrested the man and testified at his trial. Who are you?”
“Pierre Arnot,” said the prisoner. He kept his eyes forward. His chin was covered in gray bristles and his hair was unkempt. He’d be, Gamache guessed, about seventy-five. The right age, even, roughly, the right build.
But not the right man.
“How long have you been here?” Gamache asked the head guard.
“Six months.”
“And you?” He turned to the other guard, who looked surprised by the question.
“Four months, sir. I was one of your students at the Sûreté academy, but I flunked out. Got a job here.”
“Come with me,” Gamache said to the younger guard. “Walk me out.”
“You’re leaving?” asked the head guard.
Gamache looked back. “Go to your warden. Tell him I was here. Tell him I know.”
“Know what?”
“He’ll understand. And if you don’t understand what I’m saying, if you’re not in on it”—Gamache examined the head guard—“then my advice is to get up to the warden’s office fast and arrest him.”
The head guard stared at Gamache, uncomprehending.
“Go,” Gamache shouted, and the head guard turned and lef
t.
“Not you.” Gamache grabbed the younger guard by the arm. “Lock him in here”—he gestured to the prisoner—“and come with me.”
The young guard did as he was told, and followed Gamache as he strode back down the corridor.
“What’s happening, sir?” the guard asked, working to keep up with the Chief Inspector.
“You’ve been here four months, the head guard for six. The other guards?”
“Most of us have come in the last six months.”
“So Captain Monette might not be in on it,” said Gamache quietly. Thinking as he walked rapidly toward the front gate.
At the final door, Gamache turned to the young guard, who now looked anxious.
“Strange things are about to happen, son. If Monette’s in on it, or if he can’t arrest the warden, you’ll be given orders that won’t seem right, and won’t be.”
“What should I do?”
“Guard that man they say is Arnot. Keep him alive.”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Speak with authority, carry yourself as though you know what you’re doing. And don’t do anything you know in your heart to be wrong.”
The young man straightened up.
“What’s your name?”
“Cohen, sir. Adam Cohen.”
“Well, Monsieur Cohen, this is an unexpected day for all of us. Why did you fail out of the Sûreté academy? What happened?”
“I flunked my science exams.” He paused. “Twice.”
Gamache smiled reassuringly. “Fortunately, you won’t be asked to do science today. Just use your judgment. No matter what orders are issued, you must only do what you know to be right. You understand?”
The boy nodded, his eyes wide.
“When this is over, I’ll be back to talk to you about the Sûreté and the academy.”
“Yessir.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Gamache.
“Yessir.”
But neither of them totally believed it.
At the door there was a moment’s anxiety when Chief Inspector Gamache handed the slip over and waited for his gun. But finally the Glock was handed back and Gamache walked quickly to his car. No more could be learned here.
Pierre Arnot was almost certainly dead. Killed six months ago, so that that man could take his place. Arnot couldn’t talk, because he was dead. His replacement couldn’t talk because he knew nothing. And any guard who would recognize Arnot had been transferred out.
Arnot’s disappearance told the Chief a great deal. It said that Pierre Arnot was once at the center of whatever was happening, but was no longer necessary.
Someone else had taken over. And Gamache knew who that was.
He got in the car and checked emails. There was a message from the zoo.
Georges Renard, now the Premier of Québec, had studied civil engineering at the École Polytechnique in the 1970s. His first job was with Les Services Aqueduct in the far north of Québec.
There it was. The link between Aqueduct and Renard. But why had Arnot’s name been connected to Aqueduct?
Gamache read on. Renard’s first job had been in La Grande, on the biggest engineering project in the world at that time. The construction of the massive hydroelectric dam.
And there it was. The link between Pierre Arnot and Georges Renard. As young men they’d worked in the same area. One policing the Cree reserve, the other building the dam that would destroy the reserve.
Is that where they’d first met? Is it possible this plan had started then? Was it forty years in gestation? A year ago a plot to bring down that same hydroelectric dam had almost succeeded. But Gamache had stopped it. It had taken him and Beauvoir and so many others into that factory.
And now the pieces were beginning to come together. How the bombers had known exactly where to hit the huge dam. It had always bothered the Chief Inspector that those young men, with their trucks filled with explosives, were able to get so far, and find the one soft spot in a monolithic structure.
This was how.
Georges Renard. The Premier of Québec now, but then a young engineer. If Renard knew how to put the dam up, he also knew how to bring it down.
Pierre Arnot, an officer on the Cree reserve then but on track to become the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté, had created the rage and despair necessary to drive two young Cree to an act of terrible domestic terrorism. And Renard had given them the vital information.
They’d almost succeeded.
But to what end? Why would the elected leader of the province not only destroy the dam that provided power, but in doing so wipe out towns and villages downriver, killing thousands.
To what end?
Gamache had hoped Arnot could tell him. But more than the why, Gamache needed to know what the next target was. What was their Plan B? Gamache knew two things. It was soon, and it was big.
Armand Gamache had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The construction contracts to repair the tunnels, bridges, and overpasses hadn’t been done. In years and years. Billions of dollars in contracts had been awarded and put in pockets as the road system deteriorated, to the point of collapse.
Chief Inspector Gamache was almost certain the plan was to hurry that collapse. To bring down a tunnel. A bridge. A massive cloverleaf.
But to what end?
Again Gamache had to remind himself that the reason was far less important at the moment than the target. The attack was imminent, he knew. Within hours, almost certainly. He’d presumed the target was in Montréal, but it could also be in Quebec City. The capital. In fact, it could be anywhere in Québec.
There was one more message from the zoo, this one from Jérôme Brunel.
Audrey Villeneuve worked for the Ministry of Transportation in Montréal. Clerical.
He thought for a moment before writing the reply. Just two words. He hit send, started the car, and left the penitentiary behind.
*
“The Granby Zoo?” asked Lambert. “They’re getting in through the archives of the zoo. We’ve got them.”
Over the speakerphone in his office Sylvain Francoeur could hear the tap, tap, tap as Chief Inspector Lambert hit keys. Rapid footsteps chasing the intruder.
He punched the speakerphone off when Tessier entered his office.
“I was on my way to that village when we picked up Gamache’s vehicle and cell phone.”
“He’s left the village?”
Tessier nodded. “He went to the SHU. We got there a few minutes ago, but missed him.”
Francoeur shot out of his chair. “He went inside?”
He was shrieking at Tessier so loudly he could feel the skin of his throat rip away. He half expected to spew flesh all over the imbecile in front of him.
“We didn’t expect him to leave the village,” said Tessier. “We actually thought he’d given his car and cell phone to someone else, as a decoy, to draw us away, but then we realized the car was at the SHU. We accessed the security cameras and saw it was Gamache.”
“You’re a fucking moron.” Francoeur leaned across his desk. “Does he know?”
Francoeur was glaring at him and Tessier felt his heart stop for a moment.
Tessier nodded. “He knows the man in the SHU isn’t Arnot. But that doesn’t get him any closer.”
Tessier himself had taken care of Arnot, as Arnot should have taken care of himself years before. A bullet to the brain.
“And where’s Gamache now?” Francoeur demanded.
“Coming toward Montréal, sir. Heading for the Jacques Cartier Bridge. We’re on him now. We won’t lose him.”
“Of course you won’t fucking lose him,” snapped Francoeur. “He doesn’t want to be lost. He wants us to follow him.”
He’s heading to the Jacques Cartier Bridge into east-end Montréal, thought Francoeur, his mind racing. Which means he’s probably coming here. Are you that bold, Armand? Or that stupid?
“There’s something else, sir,” said Tess
ier, looking down at his notebook, not daring to look into those heart-stopping eyes. “The Brunels aren’t in Vancouver.”
“Of course they aren’t.” Francoeur punched the speakerphone back on. “Lambert? Francoeur. Dr. Jérôme Brunel’s the one who’s hacked us.”
Lambert’s tinny voice came through. “No, sir. Not Brunel. He tripped the alarm a few days ago, right?”
“Right,” said Francoeur.
“Well, the person I’m chasing is far more clever. Brunel might be one of the hackers, but I think I know who the other one is.”
“Who?”
“Agent Yvette Nichol.”
“Who?”
“She worked with Gamache for a while, but he fired her. Put her in the basement.”
“Wait, I know her,” said Tessier. “In that monitoring room. Awful little shithead.”
“That’s her,” said Lambert. As she spoke they could still hear her fingers on the keyboard. Running Agent Nichol to ground. “I brought her to Cyber Crimes but she didn’t work out. Too damaged. I sent her back.”
“It’s her?” asked Francoeur.
“I think so.”
“Meet me in the sub-basement.”
“Yessir.”
“You find out where Gamache is going,” he said to Tessier, and headed out the door. Was it possible Gamache’s people had been working out of Sûreté headquarters? They’d been here all along, right under their noses? In the sub-basement? That would explain the ultra high-speed.
And Gamache, hiding away in that village, was a decoy.
Yes, thought Francoeur as he descended to the sub-basement, it was the sort of bold move that would appeal to Gamache’s ego.
Inspector Lambert was already outside the locked door in the basement when Chief Superintendent Francoeur and two other massive agents arrived.
Francoeur took Lambert a few paces down the corridor and whispered, “Could they be inside?”
“It’s possible,” said Lambert.
Francoeur turned to the two agents. “Knock it down.”
One drew his weapon while the other kicked. There was a bang as the door flew open, to reveal a tiny room, with banks of monitors, keyboards, terminals, candy wrappers, moldy orange peels, empty soft drink cans. But otherwise empty.