by Louise Penny
When he’d embraced Daniel, not the first but subsequent times, he’d slipped his hand into Daniel’s pockets. To get the magnetized coins away from his son.
But the nickels weren’t there.
He’d tried again, to be sure, when he’d taken the JSPS card. Still, he came away empty-handed.
And then, finally, on the Bridge of Hearts, he’d put it together. What Claude Dussault had thrown into the fountain.
Dussault had obviously found the coins on Daniel, but instead of handing them over, he’d kept them, then thrown them into the fountain.
That’s why he wanted to meet there. He needed to get rid of the nickels without being seen. Someplace where he could later retrieve them.
The coins were part of the proof that neodymium was involved.
What was the Prefect up to? Was he double-crossing his employers? Planning to blackmail them by keeping some of the proof himself?
Were the coins insurance, in case GHS turned on him?
Gamache was beginning to suspect that everything Dussault had said that evening, everything he’d done, had been calculated. But what was the sum? What did it add up to?
Armand knew if he came up with the wrong answer, it would be catastrophic.
But one thing he did know. Claude Dussault was the most cunning and therefore the most dangerous person in the picture.
By far.
Alain Pinot was typing away at the terminal. He’d also given Allida and Judith access to the AFP morgue. The three were deep into it now.
The stories and reporters’ notes from those dates were wide-ranging and global, from a plane crash in Ukraine to various road accidents to riots sparked by fears of both climate change and the new nuclear power stations coming online to help solve the problem.
There did not seem to be any common thread or theme.
“Give me my phone back,” said Séverine Arbour.
“Come with me,” Gamache said, leading her away.
When he stopped, he brought out her phone, removed the SIM card, and slipped it into his pocket.
“Why did you do that?” she asked as he handed her phone back. “This’s useless without the SIM.”
“Is it?” he asked. “What about the tracking app?”
He could have neutralized that, too, but didn’t want to alert whoever was monitoring the phone that Arbour had been discovered.
She tried to rally. “What tracking? Has someone tampered with my phone?”
He raised his brows and stared at her.
She paled. “It’s not what it seems.”
“Really? Because it seems you’ve been passing information to the very people who’ve murdered their way across Paris. The very people we’ve been desperate to avoid. You’ve given them information that led to my son being picked up, beaten, and now held at gunpoint.”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t mean—” Now she looked both panicked and confused.
“Tell me now, what do you know about GHS? What’ve you been hiding?”
“Nothing. I don’t know anything.”
“You’re lying.”
He took a step toward her and she cringed.
And Armand Gamache, a good, decent man, understood how good, decent people could resort to torture. If time was too short and the stakes too high.
Because he wanted to do that now. To do whatever was necessary to get the information out of her and save Daniel.
He was so shocked by this realization, so horrified by his temptation, that he took a step away. And clutched his hands behind his back, in case …
“Tell me what you know. Now.”
Séverine Arbour was looking at him, clearly terrified.
She thinks I’m going to beat the information out of her.
And yet, despite her terror, there was resolve. She would not talk. Not easily.
What could be so important that she’d endure torture rather than talk?
“Come with me,” he said and, taking her by the arm, they returned to the others.
“I’m sorry,” said Pinot. “There’s nothing.”
“We can’t find anything connecting any of these dates and stories,” said Judith de la Granger.
Pulling up a chair, Gamache sat down and scanned the pages, going from one date to the next to the …
Then he sat back, as though softly shoved. His mouth had dropped open slightly.
“What is it?” asked Madame de la Granger. She’d seen that look before when researchers finally found what they’d spent decades searching for. Usually some apparently trivial line in an obscure text that illuminated everything.
She leaned closer to read the story that had so struck the Chief Inspector.
It was about a plane crash in Ukraine a year and a half ago. She remembered reading about it. The passenger plane had hit the center of a town. Three hundred and thirty killed.
But Gamache was onto the next date and the next series of stories.
Then he turned to Arbour. “What’s GHS Engineering building in Luxembourg?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “It’s a funicular, isn’t it.”
“But there’s no story about a funicular, Armand,” said Pinot.
“Non,” he said. “Not yet. But there is that.”
It was a news brief, about an elevator that had plummeted thirty-two stories, in Chicago, killing the two people inside.
He got up and looked at his watch. Just over three hours left.
Séverine Arbour saw him coming and backed away, but he walked right by her, as though in a trance. And began pacing the reading room. Almost prowling. Like a great cat in captivity. Looking for the way out. Up and back. Up and back.
What did Claude Dussault say?
Think. Think.
Calm. Calm. Think. Think.
With every step forward he threw his mind back. To what the head of the Préfecture de Paris had said as they’d sat in the corridor of the section d’urgence.
Then, later, over the body of Alexander Plessner.
In his office at the 36 and in the suite at the Lutetia.
Their dinner the night before.
His conversation at the fountain.
Their exchange in the elevator of Stephen’s building as they went up to see Daniel and his captors.
Armand put his hands in his pockets. His right hand felt the gun. It had almost certainly been placed in his apartment by Claude Dussault. Or on Dussault’s orders.
In the other he felt the nickels. Stuck together with a magnet more powerful than anything else known to engineers. Known to engineering and design.
They’d been tossed into the fountain. By Dussault.
Everywhere Gamache looked, there was the Prefect.
Despite his efforts not to be manipulated, was that what was happening? In thinking he was carving his own path, was he really only doing their bidding? Dussault’s bidding?
He walked on, in the dim room, lit by pools of light at each reading station. Time was short, but he couldn’t be rushed. Patience. Patience. With patience comes power.
He needed to think. Think.
Dussault, in what appeared to be a rant against Gamache’s arrogance, had demanded to know what was different between the deaths GHS had caused and what other industries did. Killing people by the tens of thousands and getting away with it. In full view.
Airlines that flew planes they knew were dangerous.
Pharmaceuticals that allowed dangerous drugs to remain in circulation.
The entire tobacco industry.
Elevators that plunged to the ground.
Engineers using faulty materials.
He stopped in his tracks and stared into the darkness. Then turned toward the others, sitting in the pools of light. Watching him.
Faulty materials.
That cause elevators to plunge. That cause planes to crash. That cause trains to derail. It wasn’t the design that was the problem. It was the material.
Neodymium.
Each of the dates Step
hen had noted had some sort of major accident. Including the first one. The train derailment that Anik Guardiola wrote about.
He turned and stared at Arbour.
His face had gone pale. His eyes were wide.
“It’s the accidents,” he said, striding past Arbour and back to Pinot’s terminal. “That’s what your journalist was on to, at the very beginning. That’s why they killed her. She asked too many questions. I got it the wrong way around. Stephen didn’t bring Plessner in. Plessner contacted Stephen. As an engineer, he must’ve made the connection. He’s the one who dictated those dates to Stephen.”
Gamache sat down and started going back over the AFP stories.
“That plane crash eighteen months ago,” he said. “And there was another, just four months later on the next date.” He brought up that page. “Different airlines, different make of plane. Two hundred and thirty killed in the second crash. They’d appear to be unrelated, but suppose that’s not true? Look here, cars exploding into flames. Again, different makes. That bridge collapse in the middle of winter in the Alps. The failure of the elevator’s safety mechanism.
“The inquiries into every one of the so-called accidents, even the plane crashes, came to no firm conclusion, and the investigations petered out.”
“So-called accidents?” asked Madame de la Granger. “You think these were sabotage? Even terrorist attacks?”
“No,” said Gamache, staring at the screen. “I think the first one, the derailment in Colombia, really was an accident. And I don’t think the others were deliberate. At least, not targeted. But neither were they unavoidable.”
“What’re you saying?” asked Pinot.
“He’s saying that GHS is responsible for all these accidents,” said Allida Lenoir. “Or whatever they are.”
“I’m saying they’ve known for years that something was wrong, ever since the train derailment. And they’ve done nothing to correct it,” said Gamache. “I think GHS Engineering is using the neodymium to make something common. So common that it’s used in all sorts of things.”
He went back to the airline story.
“What happens to aircraft at thirty-five thousand feet? We’ve all watched the flight maps, and seen the report on speed, altitude, and outside temperature.”
“It can get to minus sixty or more,” said Judith.
“Everything freezes. A plane is designed to withstand that. But suppose one element is not? Neodymium has many advantages, but one flaw. When overheated or frozen, it can shatter. I think that’s what’s happening.” He turned to Séverine Arbour. “Isn’t that right?”
But she didn’t speak. Didn’t say a word. She, too, was pale.
“Holy shit,” said Madame Lenoir. “They knew, and they didn’t stop it?”
Gamache turned to Alain Pinot. “What would happen if GHS accepted responsibility?”
“Early on? After the train derailment?” He thought. “Not a lot. No one was killed.”
“So why didn’t they?” asked Madame de la Granger.
“Denial,” suggested Pinot. “They didn’t want to see.”
“I think it went far beyond denial,” said Gamache. “I think by the time the train went off the rails, whatever caused it had already been built into all sorts of things, all over the world. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of things. Some would never cause a problem, but some would. And to issue a recall would be ruinous.”
“So they turned a blind eye?” said Judith de la Granger. “Knowing what would happen? That thousands would be killed?”
“Not thinking anyone would make the connection back to them,” said Pinot. “And no one did. How many planes are taking off right now, with…”
“We have to stop it,” said Allida Lenoir.
“We don’t even know what ‘it’ is,” Judith said. “What’re they making?”
They stared at each other, but no one had the answer. At one time, Gamache had thought it had to do with the Allen wrench or the screws Stephen had lying around. But that couldn’t be right. They were not made of neodymium.
But something Stephen had was. Something magnetized those Canadian nickels.
“We need proof,” he said. “We can’t just tell aviation around the world to stop flying. We’d be dismissed as cranks. Oh, my God.”
“What is it?” Judith demanded, seeing the look of shock, of horror, on the Chief Inspector’s face.
“Something Dussault mentioned. The nuclear power plants coming online. Some already are.”
“Oh, fuck,” whispered Judith, sitting, collapsing, into a chair.
“Planes freeze,” said Allida. “But nuclear reactors superheat. And if there’s neodymium—”
Gamache, wide-eyed, was nodding. Seeing the map the newscasts had shown, of the new power plants around the world.
In Colorado. In Arizona. In Ontario and Manitoba. In the UK and France. China. On and on. Next-generation, safer. Safest, they were guaranteed. Brought online to reduce fossil fuel use. Their designs checked and rechecked. Until even the most ardent environmentalists gave their reluctant approval.
But the problem wasn’t the design. The catastrophe would be caused by the material. A near-miraculous rare earth element that promised to make everything more efficient.
Safer.
If one or more of those reactors goes…?
“We have to stop it,” said Allida.
“We have to find out what it is,” said Armand. “We need proof.”
“Can’t we just tell them it’s the neodymium?” demanded Pinot.
“Would you shut down power plants, ground planes, stop elevators in office buildings internationally based on us saying it’s neodymium?” asked Gamache. “Of course not. We need to know exactly what it is they’ve built into those things.”
“If Horowitz and Plessner had the proof, why didn’t they sound an alarm?” asked Judith. “Go to the authorities?”
“I think they suspected, but it took years and hundreds of millions of dollars to get the evidence,” said Gamache. “And it would have to be absolute, undeniable. Something the board members and the authorities, many of whom are in the pocket of GHS, couldn’t ignore.”
Out in the street they could hear sounds. Paris was stirring. The start of another working week. He checked his watch. It was 4:37 in the morning. Less than three hours now.
Gamache turned to Séverine Arbour. “I think you—”
But she wasn’t there. While they’d been focused on the computer, she’d disappeared into the shadows.
“Damn,” he said, standing up so quickly his chair fell over. “We have to find her.”
“Why?” asked Madame de la Granger. “You think she knows something?”
“She’s working with Claude Dussault,” said Gamache. “She’s been passing him information all day.”
“What?” demanded Judith, her face opening in horror.
“We’ll find her,” said Allida. “I know every inch of this building.”
“She can’t have gone far,” Gamache called after her. “I locked the door when we came in.”
Pinot took his arm and pulled him around. “You said Claude Dussault just now. Did you mean the head of the Paris police? That Dussault?”
“Oui.”
“Are you saying the head of the whole fucking police force is behind this?”
“The Prefect, yes. Do you know him?”
“Not well. I’ve met him socially, at the opera and fundraisers. We’ve done stories on him and his reorganization of the Préfecture after his predecessor died. He seems a good man, a decent man. Why would he be involved in this?”
“Money. Power,” said Gamache, staring at Pinot. “You understand those.”
Pinot’s shrewd face examined Gamache. “If you do find that evidence, what’ll you do with it?”
“You know.”
“You’ll hand it over to them, won’t you?”
“To save my son. Yes.”
“You kno
w I can’t let you do that.”
Armand felt the weight of the gun in his pocket. “And you know you can’t stop me.”
“They’ll kill him anyway, Armand. And not just him. You. Me. Them.” Alain Pinot nodded toward the Chief Librarian, on her hands and knees now, looking under the tables, and the Chief Archivist appearing from, and disappearing into, dark aisles of books and maps and documents.
“And anyone else who’s touched this case,” said Armand. “Including my wife, daughter, son-in-law.”
“And the ‘accidents’ will continue.”
“Yes.”
“Damn,” came Allida’s voice from out of the darkness, followed milliseconds later by a thud, as Judith de la Granger went to stand up and knocked her head on the bottom of a table.
“What?” she called.
“The door connecting the archives to the museum is open. She must’ve gone out that way. She’s in the museum. But there’re guards there and the doors onto the quadrangle are locked. She still can’t leave.”
“But there are phones,” said Gamache. “She can call Dussault and tell him what we know.”
“Fuck,” said Madame de la Granger.
“I’ve never heard you swear before,” said Madame Lenoir. “You always said it was the refuge of a second-class mind.”
“I was wrong,” said Madame de la Granger.
“We have to get out of here,” said Pinot.
“Not yet,” said Gamache. “We have to find whatever proof Stephen and Plessner had.”
“Wait a minute,” said Judith, turning to Gamache. “You think it’s here? In the archives? We’re not just looking up references, you think the proof itself is hidden here.”
“Where would you hide a book?” Gamache asked her.
“In a library.”
“Where would you hide a document?” he asked.
“Here,” said Judith. “With other documents.”
“But this isn’t the only archive collection,” said Allida. “There’re different archives in buildings all over France. Why would you think Monsieur Horowitz would hide the proof here?”
“Because he’d want us to be able to find it, and this building is around the corner from our home. Reine-Marie knows it well. If he put it in any of the archives, it’d be this one.”
“That’s a big ‘if,’” said Judith.
