by Louise Penny
He began to sing it, softly.
“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he exhaled into the tree, “when all the birds had fled.”
The carol was more spoken than sung, but it calmed his frantic mind just enough.
“That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead.”
His hand banged against the old wooden platform, and without hesitation he scrambled through the hole and lay flat on his stomach, his cheek buried in the snow, his right arm around the tree trunk. His heavy breath propelled snowflakes away, in a tiny blizzard. He slowed his breathing, afraid of hyperventilating, then crept to his knees and crouched low as though something just over the edge might reach up and yank him over.
But Gamache knew the enemy wasn’t just over the edge. It was on the platform with him.
Pulling the flashlight from his pocket, he turned it on. The dish was locked on a small tripod, which Gilles had screwed to the railing of the hunting blind.
It was pointing up.
“Oh, Christ,” said Gamache, and briefly wondered how bad Francoeur’s plan could really be. Maybe they didn’t have to stop it. Maybe they could go back to bed and pull the covers up.
“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he mumbled as he moved forward, on his knees. The platform felt like it was tilting and Gamache felt himself pitching forward, but he shut his eyes, and steadied himself.
“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he repeated. Get the snow off the dish, and get down.
“Armand.”
It was Thérèse, standing at the foot of the tree.
“Oui,” he called down, and turned the flashlight in that direction.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, and scrambled as far from the edge as possible, his boots scraping at the snow. His back banged against the tree and he grabbed at it. Not for fear he’d fall, but the fear that had been clawing at him as he climbed had finally wrapped itself around him. And was dragging him to the edge.
Gamache was afraid he’d throw himself over.
He pressed his back harder against the trunk.
“I called Gilles, but he can’t be here for half an hour.” Her voice came to him out of the darkness.
The Chief cursed himself. He should have asked Gilles to stay with them, in case this very thing happened. Gilles had offered the night before and he’d told him to go home. And now the man was half an hour away, when every moment counted.
Every moment counted.
The words cut through the shriek in his head. Cut through the fear, cut through the comforting carol.
Every moment counts.
Letting go of the tree, he jammed the flashlight into the snow, pointed at the satellite dish, and moved forward on his hands and knees, as fast as he could.
At the wooden railing, he stood up and looked into the satellite dish. It was filled with snow. He dropped his gloves to the platform and carefully, rapidly, scooped the snow out of it. Trying not to knock it off its beam. Trying not to dislodge the receptor at the very center of the dish.
Finally, it was done and he lunged away from the edge, and back to the tree, putting his arms around it, grateful there was no one to see him doing it. But honestly, at that stage Chief Inspector Gamache didn’t care if the image went viral. He wasn’t going to let go of that tree.
“Thérèse,” he called, and heard the fear in his voice.
“Here. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“The snow’s off the dish.”
“Agent Nichol’s on the road,” said Thérèse. “When Jérôme connects she’ll turn her flashlight on and off.”
Gamache, still gripping the tree, turned his head and stared across the treetops toward the road. All he saw was darkness.
“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he whispered to himself. “When all the birds had fled.”
Please, Lord, please.
“Twas in the moon of winter—”
And then he saw it.
A light. Then the darkness. Then a light.
They were connected. It had begun.
* * *
“Is it working?” Thérèse asked as soon as they opened the door of the old schoolhouse.
“Perfectly,” said Jérôme, his voice almost giddy. He typed in a few instructions and images popped up and disappeared, and new ones came on. “Better than I’d imagined.”
Gamache looked at his watch. One twenty.
The countdown had begun.
“Holy shit,” said Nichol, her eyes round and bright. “It works.”
Chief Inspector Gamache tried to ignore the surprise in her voice.
“What now?” Thérèse asked.
“We’re in the national archives,” Jérôme reported. “Agent Nichol and I talked about it and decided to split up. Double our chances of finding something.”
“I’m going in through a terminal in a school library in Baie-des-Chaleurs,” said Nichol. On seeing the surprise in their faces, she lowered her eyes and mumbled, “I’ve done this before. Best way to snoop.”
While Jérôme and Thérèse seemed surprised, Gamache was not. Agent Nichol was born to the shadows. To the margins. She was a natural snooper.
“And I’m going in through the Sûreté evidence room in Schefferville,” said Jérôme.
“The Sûreté?” asked Thérèse, looking over his shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“No,” he admitted. “But our only advantage is to be bold. If they trace us back to some Sûreté outpost, it might just confuse them long enough for us to disappear.”
“You think so?” asked Gamache.
“It confused you.”
Gamache smiled. “True.”
Thérèse also smiled. “Off you go then, and don’t forget to play dirty.”
Thérèse and Gamache had brought Hudson’s Bay blankets from Emilie’s home, and the two made themselves useful by putting them up at the windows. It would still be obvious that someone was in the schoolhouse, but it would not be obvious what they were doing.
Gilles arrived and brought in more firewood. He fed chopped logs into the stove, which began pouring out good heat.
For the next couple of hours, Jérôme and Nichol worked almost in silence. Every now and then they’d exchange words and phrases like 418s. Firewalls. Symmetric keys.
But for the most part they worked quietly, the only sounds in the schoolhouse the familiar tapping of keys, and the muttering of the woodstove.
Gamache, Gilles, and Henri had returned to Emilie’s home and brought back bacon and eggs, bread and coffee. They cooked on the woodstove, filling the room with the aroma of bacon, wood smoke and coffee.
But so great was Jérôme’s concentration that he didn’t seem to notice. He and Nichol talked about packets and encryption. Ports and layers.
When breakfast was put beside them the two barely looked up. Both were immersed in their own world of NIPS and countermeasures.
Gamache poured himself a coffee and leaned against the old map by the window, watching. Resisting the temptation to hover.
It reminded him a little of the rooms of his tutors at Cambridge. Papers piled high. Notepads, scribbled thoughts, mugs of cold tea and half-eaten crumpets. A stove for heat, and the scent of drying wool.
Gilles sat in what they’d begun to call his chair, at the door of the schoolhouse. He ate his breakfast and, when he was finished, poured himself another mug of coffee and tipped his chair back against the door. He was their deadbolt.
Gamache looked at his watch. It was twenty-five past four. He felt like pacing, but knew that would be annoying. He was dying to ask how it was going, but knew that would simply break their concentration. Instead, he called Henri and put on his coat, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets. In his panic, he’d left his gloves on the platform with the satellite dish and he sure as hell wasn’t going back for them.
Thérèse and Gilles joined them, and they went for a stroll.
“It’s going well,” said Thérès
“Yes,” said Gamache. It was cold, and clear, and crisp, and dark. And quiet.
“Like thieves in the night, eh?” he said to Gilles.
The woodsman laughed. “I hope I didn’t insult you with that.”
“Far from it,” said Thérèse. “It’s a natural career progression. Sorbonne, chief curator at the Musée des beaux-arts, Superintendent of the Sûreté, and finally, the pinnacle. A thief in the night.” She turned to Gamache. “And all thanks to you.”
“You’re welcome, madame.” Gamache bowed solemnly.
They sat on a bench and looked across to the schoolhouse, with its light muffled by the blankets. The Chief wondered if the quiet woodsman beside him knew what would happen if they failed. And what would happen if they succeeded.
In either case, all hell was about to break loose. And come here.
But at this moment there was peace and quiet.
They walked back to the schoolhouse, Henri leaping and catching the snowballs, only to have them disappear in his mouth. But he never stopped trying, never gave up.
An hour later Jérôme and Nichol tripped their first alarm.
THIRTY-FOUR
The phone woke Sylvain Francoeur and he grabbed the receiver before the second ring.
“What is it?” he said, instantly alert.
“Sir, it’s Charpentier here. There’s been a breach.”
Francoeur got up on one elbow and waved his wife to go back to sleep.
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m monitoring network activity, and someone’s accessed one of the restricted files.”
Francoeur turned on the light, put on his glasses, and looked at the clock on the bedside table. The bright red numbers said 5:43 A.M. He sat up.
“How serious?”
“I don’t know. It might not be anything. As instructed, I called Inspector Tessier and he told me to call you.”
“Good. Now explain what you saw.”
“Well, it’s complicated.”
“Try.”
Charpentier was surprised that so much menace could be contained in such a small word. He tried. His best. “Well, the firewall’s not showing that an unauthorized connection’s been made, but…”
“But what?”
“It’s just that someone opened the file and I’m not sure who it was. It was within the network, so the person had access codes. It’s probably someone within the department, but we can’t be sure.”
“Are you telling me you don’t know if there has been a breach?”
“I’m saying there has, but we don’t know if it’s someone from the outside, or one of our own. Like a house alarm. At first it’s hard to tell if it’s an intruder or a raccoon.”
“A raccoon? You’re not seriously comparing the Sûreté’s state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar security system with a house alarm?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s only because it’s state-of-the-art that we found it at all. Most systems and programs would’ve missed it. But it’s so sensitive, sometimes we find things that don’t need to be found. That aren’t threats.”
“Like a raccoon?”
“Exactly,” said the agent, obviously regretting the analogy. It had worked with Tessier, but Chief Superintendent Francoeur was a whole other beast. “And if there is an intruder, we can’t yet tell if there’s a purpose, or if it’s just some hacker out to make trouble, or even someone who wandered in by mistake. We’re working on it.”
“By mistake?” They’d installed this system last year. Brought in the finest software designers and Internet architects to create something that couldn’t be breached. And now this agent was saying some idiot might have wandered in by mistake?
“It happens more often than people realize,” said Charpentier unhappily. “I don’t think it’s serious, but we’re treating it as though it is, just in case. And the file they’ve accessed doesn’t appear all that important.”
“Which file?” Francoeur asked.
“Something about the construction schedule for Autoroute 20.”
Francoeur stared at the curtains drawn in front of the bedroom window. There was a slight flutter as the cold air came into his home.
The file seemed so trivial, so far from anything that could threaten their plan, but Francoeur knew that file for what it was. For what it contained. And now someone was sniffing around.
“Check it out,” he said, “and call me back.”
“Yessir.”
“What is it?” asked Madame Francoeur, watching her husband head to the bathroom.
“Nothing, just a little trouble at work. Go back to sleep.”
“Are you getting up?”
“Might as well,” he said. “I’m awake now, and the alarm’ll go off soon anyway.”
But alarms were already going off for Chief Superintendent Francoeur.
* * *
“They’ve seen us,” said Jérôme. “I tripped the alarm here.”
“Where?” asked Gamache, pulling up a chair.
Jérôme showed him.
“Construction files?” asked Gamache, and turned to Thérèse. “Why would the Sûreté have any files on road construction, never mind ones that are secure?”
“No reason. It isn’t our jurisdiction. The roads, yes, but not repairing them. And it certainly wouldn’t be confidential.”
“They must be looking for us,” said Nichol. Her voice was calm. Just reporting facts.
“To be expected,” said Jérôme, his voice also calm.
On his monitor they saw files open and close. Appear and disappear.
“Stop typing,” said Nichol.
Jérôme lifted his hands off the keyboard and they hovered in midair.
Gamache stared at the monitor. He could almost see lines of code appear, grow, then contract.
“Have they found you?” Jérôme asked Nichol.
“No. I’m over in another file. It’s also about construction, but it’s old. Can’t be important.”
“Wait,” said Gamache, dragging his chair over to her monitor. “Show me.”
* * *
“Sir, it’s Charpentier again.”
“Oui,” said Francoeur. He’d showered and dressed and was about to head in. It was now just after six.
“It was nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain. I had a good look around. Ran all sorts of scans and couldn’t find any unauthorized access to our network. It happens fairly often, as I said. A ghost in the machine. I’m sorry to disturb you with this.”
“You did the right thing.” While relieved, Francoeur still didn’t relax. “Put more agents on to monitor.”
“Another shift starts at eight—”
“I mean now.” The voice was sharp, and Charpentier responded immediately.
“Yessir.”
Francoeur hung up, then punched in Tessier’s number.
* * *
“These are shift reports,” said Gamache. “From a company called Aqueduct. They’re thirty years old. Why’re you looking at them?”
“I was following a trail. A name popped up in another file and I followed it here.”
“What name?” Gamache asked.
“Pierre Arnot.”
“Show me.” Gamache leaned in and Nichol scrolled down. Gamache put on his glasses and scanned the pages. There were lots of names. It appeared to be work schedules and soil reports and things called loads. “I don’t see it.”
“Neither did I,” admitted Nichol. “But it’s associated with this file.”
“Maybe it’s another Pierre Arnot,” said Jérôme from his desk. “It’s not an uncommon name.”
Gamache hummed to show he’d heard, but his attention was taken by the file. There was no actual mention of any Arnot.
“How could his name be attached to this file, but not appear in it?” Gamache asked.
“It could be hidden,” said Nichol. “Or an outside reference. Like your name might be attached to a file on balding, or licorice pipes.”
Gamache glanced at Jérôme, who’d given a snort.
Still, he understood. Arnot’s name didn’t need to appear in the file to be somehow associated with it. Somewhere down the line, there was a connection.
“Keep going,” said the Chief, and got up.
* * *
“Charpentier’s very good at what he does,” Tessier reassured Francoeur over the phone. He too was dressed and ready for work. As he’d put on his socks he’d realized that when he took them off that night, everything would have changed. His world. The world. Certainly Québec. “If he says it’s nothing, then that’s what it was.”
“No.” The Chief Superintendent wanted to be convinced, to be reassured. But he wasn’t. “There’s something wrong. Call Lambert. Get her in.”
“Yessir.” Tessier hung up and dialed Chief Inspector Lambert, the head of Cyber Crimes.
* * *
Gamache stirred the embers with a fresh log, making more room, then he shoved it in and put the cast-iron cap back on.
“Agent Nichol,” he said after a few moments. “Can you look up that company?”
“What company?”
“Aqueduct.” He walked across to her. “Where you followed Pierre Arnot.”
“But he never showed up. It must’ve been another Arnot or a coincidental contact. Something not very significant.”
“Maybe, but please find out what you can about Aqueduct.” He was leaning over her, one hand on the desk, the other on the back of her chair.
She huffed, and the screen she was looking at flew away. A few clicks later and images of old Roman bridges and water systems leapt onto the monitor. Aqueducts.
“Satisfied?” she demanded.
“Scroll down,” he said, and he studied the list of references to “Aqueduct.”
There was a company that studied sustainability. There was a band by that name.
They went through a few pages, but the information became less and less relevant.
“Can I go back now?” asked Nichol, weary of amateurs.
Gamache stared at the screen, still feeling uneasy. But he nodded.
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