Chapter 44

C HAPTER 44

Gamache took the stairs two at a time. One hand holding the gun, his other resting on the plastic container in his pocket. Keeping it safe. It was as Sherry Caufield had said. The botulinum would be delivered in a small container, probably disguised as medicine or shampoo to get it by security screening.

Before leaving Pump Room One, he'd yanked the phone out of the wall, not realizing it was already dead, and shot into the control panel, locking the door as he left.

He had less than two minutes before Beauvoir and Lagacé started shutting down the plant. A move that would warn the terrorists, if they weren't already alerted, and they'd immediately put the poison into Pump Two.

He reached the second-floor landing and banged against the crash bar, bursting into another long corridor. Once again, rapids were coursing down either side, creating a deafening noise. Scanning up and down the hall, Gamache could see only one person a distance away.

He took off for the pump room, no longer caring if he was seen. Once again, he slapped Lagacé's ID on the screen and heard the clunk as the door unlocked.

He was reaching for the handle when he felt something against the back of his head. It was unmistakable.

The roar of the rushing water had masked the sound of others approaching.

"Drop your weapon, Armand."

Gamache turned and saw David Lavigne. While not a big surprise, it was still a shock. To see someone he had once completely trusted holding a gun on him.

"Don't do this."

"Drop your weapon." The demand came from one of the three men with him. Gamache recognized two of them as Moretti's soldiers. The third was a stranger. Large, confident. Silent. He looked like ex–special forces.

Armand had no choice. His gun clattered to the floor, where it was kicked aside. As he lowered his right hand, he brushed it against his pocket and felt the vial.

"You found Langlois's notebooks, didn't you. The one loose end, and you had to tug on it."

Gamache was silent.

"I guess Petrie should have killed you after all in that church. That was a tactical error on my part."

"Petrie. The Mountie?" Armand's mind was racing. He had to stall, had to give Beauvoir and Lagacé time to shut down the plant. "Not Diane's brother."

"No. But you worked that out too." Lavigne nodded to one of his people, who came forward and reached out to pat Gamache down.

Armand's arm lashed out, hitting the man squarely in the face and dropping him. Then he lunged for Lavigne, but was tackled before he got there. He twisted at the last minute, desperate not to fall on the container in his pocket and burst it open. As he hit the ground, he was lifted up again by a boot to his side.

He gasped in pain and lay still.

"On your knees," Lavigne barked. "Get on your fucking knees."

Gamache braced for another blow and moved his elbow into his side, to protect what was in his pocket.

Time, time. He needed time. Even seconds would count. He stayed limp.

"What do we do?"

"For God's sake, figure out how to shut down the plant."

"I told you, I can't. But I think I got the security cameras up."

As Beauvoir looked at the bank of monitors, they sprang to life, the images rotating from camera to camera. No sign of Gamache.

"There must be a work-around. Something. Here." He offered her the gun he'd taken from the "guard." "Use it when the time comes."

But she held up her hands. "I'm not going to take it. I won't use a gun."

He'd noticed the white rose pin on her sweatshirt and knew what it meant. It was a symbol of the fourteen young women who'd been murdered at Montréal's école Polytechnique. The engineering school. The gunman had killed them because they were women. Because they dared believe they belonged in a "man's profession." Dared believe they were equal to men.

He'd murdered them for daring.

Canada's strict gun laws came out of that femicide. And now he was handing a gun to a young female engineer, a grad of the école, and asking her to use it.

"You must."

"I won't."

He placed it on the console. "You will when the time comes."

"Where're you going?"

He was heading for the door, to find Gamache, to get to Pump Two, but before he reached it, there was a pounding on the door. The attackers were already there. There was no way out now.

Beauvoir backed up.

Manon's eyes were wide. "The shit."

"There's more than one."

"No, no, no. Five years ago there was a major spill of waste into Lac-Saint-Louis, one of the sources of drinking water. It was a mess, an environmental—"

"What? Are you kidding me? Are we chatting now?"

His eyes went from Manon to the monitors. Still no Gamache.

"No, no. Listen. Since then they've installed emergency measures"— she was talking quickly, her words running into each other—"to prevent a repeat. But also, unique to this plant, if the other measures failed and a spill of wastewater was about to happen—"

"It would shut down the plant?"

"Automatically."

"You can do it?"

"Yes, at least, I think so. It means instigating a spill. But I can't do it from here. I need to get to the wastewater room."

There was the pounding of a foot or a shoulder against the door.

"Where is it?"

"One flight down."

Beauvoir turned full circle, desperate for another way out. His eyes landed on one. But he dismissed it. There was no way. Not possible.

There was a shot. The door buckled.

"Do you have claustrophobia?" he asked.

Just then, the monitor rotated to the camera outside Pump Room Two. It showed a black-and-white image. Of Gamache. Lying on the concrete. A gunman standing over him.

Hands grabbed him and lifted him off the floor, then shoved him into a kneeling position.

He knew what that meant even before he felt the muzzle pressed against the base of his skull.

"Oh, no," said Jean-Guy. Not wanting to look, but needing to see. "Nonono."

The camera rotated on, to another site.

"Bring it back."

"Are you sure you want—"

"Do it!"

Armand brought his elbows in, to protect what was in his pocket. If, when, he fell…

"That's an odd thing to do, Armand. What do you have in there."

Lavigne nodded, and one of the men dragged the jacket off him and handed it to him.

"Cuff him."

His arms were pinned behind his back, and he felt the plastic wrist ties tighten until they cut into his skin.

Gamache's back was to Lavigne, so he couldn't see, but he heard a sound of genuine amusement and knew what he'd found.

"Oh, Armand. You've just become an accomplice."

Beauvoir shoved a chair to the wall and, climbing onto it, he yanked the cover off the vent. It was, he thought, just about large enough.

Or maybe it was just small enough so that a person would get wedged in there.

Looking from the dark tunnel, to the monitor, Jean-Guy felt a wave of panic.

Lavigne bent down until his face was right in front of his. His colleague. They'd shared a mutual trust. One Lavigne had counted on. Traded on. Weaponized.

He held up the small container. "Clever of them to put it into an aspirin bottle. Security would never question it." He handed it to one of the gunmen. "Take it inside. Give it to the head tech. She'll know what to do."

"No!" Gamache fought to get up but was kicked to the floor. "I'm begging you," he gasped. "For God's sake, David, don't do it."

He was once again shoved into a kneeling position.

"It's worse than you know, Armand. You obviously didn't realize that we could only get enough of the neurotoxin for one cylinder, so we decided to focus on Pump One. This one"—he gestured toward the partly open door—"was going to get brucellosis. Nasty stuff, but not as lethal as…" He looked at the container, which the man was holding away from his body as though that would protect him should it leak.

"You closed down Pump One. Clever. And even locked it so no one could get in or out. Also smart. But what wasn't so smart was bringing the botulinum with you. For safekeeping. You will go to your maker knowing instead of preventing a catastrophe, you've caused one. You brought the poison straight to us."

"Why?" said Armand. He'd given up playing for time. Time was up.

"Why would I do this? If you knew what happens next, you wouldn't need to ask." He watched as the heavy metal door to Pump Two closed behind the gunman. "Hard to believe something that small will kill so many. But then, a 9-millimeter bullet will kill a, what? Six-foot man?"

Gamache was straining to hear, not his words, which washed over him, but the sound of the turbines slowing. The sound that would tell him Beauvoir had succeeded.

But there was no change.

"What do we do about them?" Manon pointed at the men and women sprawled on the floor.

At least one, maybe more, was among the plotters. They only knew about the senior engineer. Beauvoir had bound and gagged them all. In case.

"Leave them." Another blast of gunfire and the door finally gave way. With one last glance at the monitor, at Armand on his knees, Jean-Guy shouted, "Come on!"

Was Jean-Guy still alive? Armand was beginning to doubt it. If he was, the turbines would be slowing down by now.

He thought of Annie. Of Honoré and Idola. Désolé. Désolé.

And why hadn't they killed him yet? What were they waiting for? He had his answer within seconds.

"Where did you hide them?"

"What?"

"Langlois's notebooks," he shouted, his words rising above the roar of the water.

Armand remained silent, staring ahead. It was a shame, he thought, that the last thing he'd see were the words Pump Two . It was also a shame that that was one of his last thoughts.

But no. He didn't have many options left, but he did have one.

As David Lavigne shouted at him, he conjured up the backyard in early evening in the height of summer. Sitting with Reine-Marie. Listening to the rustle in the woods as a chipmunk scurried or a deer strolled by. On its own way home.

As he took Reine-Marie's hand, he heard birdsong and the unruly cicadas, their call comforting now.

And all around them fireflies danced.

How lucky he'd been. To be of a generation that believed it would last forever. The forests and clean rivers, the fresh air.

His was the last generation, as it turned out.

He was, he also knew, of the generation that was responsible for its murder.

His head was forced forward by a huge hand so that his chin was practically on his chest. And the muzzle pressed more firmly against his skull, and he felt a stab of panic. Of disbelief. He was about to die.

He took a deep breath and smelled old garden rose and the musky scent of the forest.

He thought of the woman in Chicoutimi and the man in Gaspé. And how terrified they must have been. He at least knew why he was about to be executed.

He wondered if that made it easier. Perhaps.

"It's done." The word was heavily accented. Russian. Of course they'd hire Russian mercenaries. They'd want the witnesses to testify that it was foreign terrorists who'd done this. Not domestic.

"The notebooks. Where are they?"

When he refused to talk, Lavigne leaned closer. "I will go to your peaceful little village, Armand, and tear it apart. And then I will burn it down, along with everyone in it. Starting with Reine-Marie. Then Annie. Daniel. Florence—"

With each name Armand screwed his eyes tighter shut. Trying to block out the images.

"Zora. Honoré. And what's the smallest one's name? The one with Down syndrome, like my sister-in-law?"

Gamache began thrashing. But to no effect. He was just held tighter, his hair grabbed and head jerked up so that he was staring into Lavigne's eyes.

"Idola. They will all die unless you tell me where you put the notebooks. Tell me and I'll spare them."

Armand's breathing came in short gasps.

This was the nightmare. The final one…

How he longed to tell him. To believe him. But he knew it was a lie. If he told him, they'd be killed anyway. And yet he wanted to, he wanted to, he wanted…

"Please," he sobbed. "For God's sake, don't do this. They know nothing. The notebooks aren't there."

"Then where are they? Tell me!"

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Charles's books were the only proof, the only documents outlining the plot. Naming names. They had to be kept safe. At all costs.