Chapter 43

C HAPTER 43

Chief Inspector Gamache passed two maintenance workers and someone who looked like a technician. For a moment Gamache thought he was going to be questioned. Instead of avoiding eye contact, Gamache caught and held the man's attention, and gave a brusque nod.

The technician hesitated, then nodded back. And walked on. Gamache could feel the perspiration trickling down the middle of his back.

He continued on, giving every appearance of a man with a lot on his mind. It was not an expression that invited chitchat. Or challenge.

Reaching the stairs, he slipped in, grabbed the handrail, and took the concrete steps two at a time.

"I didn't know you were on duty," said the man who stopped them in the fourth-floor hallway. He was in shirtsleeves and tie with heavy black-rimmed glasses.

Manon smiled, jerked her head toward Beauvoir, and grimaced. "My brother-in-law. Visiting from Gaspé. He's leaving first thing tomorrow, thank God. I told him I'd show him where I worked." She lowered her voice. "He's a bit of an asshole."

Beauvoir looked around and said, "Is this it? Not very impressive. I expected more."

This was burning time they didn't have. If Gamache got to the pump before they got to the control room… and the red lights went on… and they saw in the monitors what was happening…

"Do you know who's on duty in the command center?"

"Lavoie."

"Oh, good. He might let us in." Again she lowered her voice. "I hope not. I just want to get this over with and put him on the flight back to Gaspé. It's almost shift change. You getting ready to go home?"

"Twenty minutes to go," said the man. "Then I'm off for a week."

"Have fun," said Manon, moving away.

"You too," the man said, with a sympathetic smile. "By the way, the men's toilet on the third floor is blocked."

Gamache got to the bottom of the stairs, and opening the door he came face-to-face with a guard holding an assault rifle.

Both were startled, but Gamache reacted more quickly.

The man was just swinging his rifle around when Gamache slugged him on the side of the head with his own gun. Grabbing the now unconscious man, he dragged him into the stairwell, and after quickly patting him down, he zip-tied the man's hands to the railing and picked up his assault rifle. Far from standard issue for security.

This was no guard.

He yanked the door open, expecting to meet resistance. What he met was a wall of near-deafening noise.

Water was roaring by on either side of the long, wide corridor. Great torrents from the St. Lawrence were being filtered through sand before entering the pump room and being sent into homes and hotels and offices and schools and hospitals in Montréal.

There was no place to hide now, no time to hide. As he ran, Gamache took the clip off the rifle and tossed it into one of the rushing rivers, then threw the rifle into the other.

He got to Pump One in less than twenty seconds. Not wasting time to see if anyone was descending on him, he brought out Manon Lagacé's ID card and tapped.

Nothing.

He tried again. Nothing.

It was like at the grocery store when his credit card refused to work and other patrons were staring at him. Annoyed.

But this was far more than an annoyance.

He was about to try one more time when he remembered her instructions. Place, don't tap. He pressed the card against the screen and heard a clunk.

The metal door opened.

The man dressed as a guard and standing by the door turned, stared. He reached for his holster, but by then Gamache had his gun in the man's face.

"What the fuck—"

"Drop your weapon. Hands where I can see them."

The man did.

Gamache scanned the room. Five people, all in white smocks, were turning to look. Their eyes widening. And Armand realized they must think he was the saboteur. Which meant the terrorists hadn't yet made their move. But it also meant it was impossible for him to tell who was who.

He realized it didn't matter. He had to assume they were all guilty.

"Everyone, on the floor. Phones out, slide them here. Hands on top of your heads." He patted the guard down. Nothing in his pockets, not even ID. This was a pro.

He zip-tied his hands and picked up the dropped weapon, shoving it in his belt before moving quickly to the control panel by the huge pump.

"What the hell are you doing?" one of the workers shouted. But got no answer.

Some of those on the floor were quietly weeping. At least one was praying.

Gamache ignored it all. Except.

He noticed that one of them had his hands awkwardly placed on his head.

"You." He pointed the gun at him. "Slowly lower your right hand to the floor and open it." The man hesitated. "Now!"

As he did, a small bottle rolled out and started making its way toward him across the concrete floor.

"Are we close?" demanded Beauvoir as they walked quickly along the corridor. "We have to get to the command center before Gamache shuts down the pump."

"Yes, I was listening. It's just down here. I think."

"You think? You think? Wait a minute. Why did that man tell you about the blocked toilet?"

"Engineers. That's about the level of their conversation."

Beauvoir grabbed her arm and swung her around. "What's your job here?"

"I'm an engineer."

"Right, but what do you engineer?"

She paused. "Sanitation."

"The toilets?"

"All the waste." She stared at him, daring Beauvoir to say more. Which he did.

"Don't you think you could've told us that? We need to stop a terrorist attack, not unblock a toilet."

"Listen, asshole. I thought you knew what I did. And what would you have done if I'd told you? Driven to the next name on the list?" She glared at him. "You begged for my help, and instead of going back to bed, I came. Like it or not, I'm it." She looked around. "It's here somewhere."

"Are you fucking with me?"

"Oh, look, we're right in front of it." She waved at the door he was standing in front of and gave him a sardonic smile. "Now there's a piece of dumb luck."

Sure enough, a plate on the wall said Command Center .

"Get behind me."

This time there was no argument from Manon Lagacé.

Gamache scooped up the small bottle, examined it, then slipped it into his pocket. If he'd had time, he'd have questioned the technician who'd tried to palm the poison, but there were more pressing things right now.

At the control panel he quickly put in the code, pausing for a moment.

He hoped to God Beauvoir had secured the command center.

Then he pressed the final key.

The door was unlocked, which meant the terrorists hadn't yet made their move. Those inside were not alerted to the saboteurs in their midst.

Beauvoir brought out his gun and stepped through. Six people turned and stared at him, two of them in guard uniforms. They were reaching for their weapons when a single red light appeared on one screen.

Then the whole section of wall burst into flashing red.

"What the hell—" said the man at the console.

It was so surprising that one of the gunmen froze. The other did not. The man had pulled a Magnum. Not what guards would be issued. Bringing his weapon around, he only had time to aim before Beauvoir fired and the man dropped.

There was sudden and complete pandemonium.

For just a moment, between the gunfire and the flashing red lights and the screams, Beauvoir lost track of the second gunman.

"Get down," he shouted, afraid the gunman was about to open fire. But all he heard were the shouts of the panicked workers as they dropped to the floor.

Beauvoir saw the door slowly closing. Leaping to it, he yanked it open, but the man was nowhere in sight. Instinct told him to run after the gunman. If he got to the others, warned the others…

But instead, Beauvoir backed up and locked the door.

Manon was at the bank of controls. "Pump One is offline," she confirmed.

There were monitors with numbers and graphs, but others, where security cameras would be, were blank.

"Shut the place down. Now!"

"But shouldn't we wait? Gamache said—"

"Now!"

The red lights were flashing, and the people splayed on the floor were pleading. One was shouting at Manon. Demanding to know what she was doing.

"Quiet!"

They swung their eyes to Beauvoir and shut up.

"Hands on your heads. Don't move. Don't speak."

"I need to figure this out," muttered Manon. "Something isn't right."

"For God's sake, hurry."

Beauvoir went to the dead man and picked up his gun, then went through his pockets. No ID, no phone.

"You shit-head." Manon turned to the senior engineer, now lying on the floor. "You sabotaged it."

"What does that mean?" demanded Beauvoir.

"It means he threw a mathematical wrench into the works. A virus that's activated if one of the pumps is offline. It's their fail-safe. We can't shut the plant down."

Beauvoir went over to the man and placed the gun to his temple. "Fix it."

"He can't," said Manon.

"Of course he can. He put it in, he can take it out."

"No, it's a rotating code. It'll take days to get it out."

"Fuck." Beauvoir's mind raced. "Can Gamache still shut down Pump Two?"

She looked at him and shook her head. "I don't think so."

Fuck.

He needed to warn Gamache. But their phones didn't work here. Beauvoir looked at the locked door. He needed to leave. To get to Pump Two. To get to Gamache. But he couldn't. He needed to hold the command center.

There was no way to get a message to the Chief. He looked around, frantic. He needed to call Forrest and get the team there. A phone. There was a phone on a desk. A landline.

He grabbed the receiver. Dead.

"Can you get the phones working again?"

"I'll try."

He watched as she rolled the chair over to another console.

"And get the security cameras back up."

"Want me to do the windows while I'm at it?" Under her breath she muttered, "Asshole." Then, a moment later, "Oh, shit, it worked. This's actually easier than unblocking the men's toilet."

The security cameras were still down, but the phone had a dial tone.

"Forrest, it's Beauvoir."

" Oui, patron. We're ready."

Jean-Guy gave him his orders. They were blown anyway. No need for secrecy now. With luck they'd manage at least to catch the terrorists before they escaped. Even if it was too late to stop the poison.

"What do we do?" Manon asked, panic in her voice, her eyes wide.

"You need to find another way to shut the place down."

There was no mistaking the look on her face.

They'd failed. It seemed inconceivable but inescapable. And in minutes, if it hadn't happened already, botulinum would be headed into every home, office, school, hospital, into every tap in the city.