by Louise Penny
Next morning Jean-Guy Beauvoir was waiting by the car with two travel mugs of café au lait from the bistro and two chocolatines.
“Just because we’re going to Mordor doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves on the way,” he said, opening the passenger-side door for Armand.
Gamache stood on the path, adjusted his satchel over his shoulder, and looked at Reine-Marie.
“Did you know about this?”
“That Jean-Guy meant to go with you all along?” she asked. “No. I’m as shocked as you.” Though it was clear she was anything but surprised.
“I was wrong, Armand.” She took his hand and examined it for a moment, playing with the simple gold wedding band. “When you said there was a connection between Fleming and Dr. Bull I dismissed it. I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”
“But never blind trust, ma belle,” he said. “You were right to question. What I said sounded delusional. You weren’t to know how brilliant it actually was.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You’re right, judging by past conclusions.”
Armand looked at Beauvoir, watching them. “I’d better go before he eats both chocolatines.”
“There were also a couple of croissants a few minutes ago,” she said. “You’d better hurry.”
“Can I talk you out of this?” Gamache asked Beauvoir, as he approached the car.
“Why don’t you try, while I drive.”
“All right, Frodo. But just remember, this was your idea.”
Beauvoir drove out of Three Pines, amused that he was Frodo and hoping Gamache was Gandalf and not Samwise.
“Do you think Al Lepage knew about the gun?” Beauvoir asked after a few miles.
“I don’t really know. I’ve been wondering the same thing. I suppose it makes sense not to have a stranger at the site of the Supergun, putting an etching on it. After all the secrecy, would Gerald Bull really do that?”
“Agent Cohen did some research,” said Beauvoir. “There is a type of paper that can be used to transfer a drawing or writing into an etching. He might be telling the truth.”
“Hmmmm” was all Gamache would say.
It was a bright morning and they were driving directly into the sun. Jean-Guy put on his dark glasses, but Gamache preferred to just lower the visor.
“I finished reading the play,” said Beauvoir, looking in the rearview mirror at the satchel sitting on the backseat.
“And?”
“When I forgot who’d written it, I thought it was amazing. I got caught up in the story, in the characters. The rooming house, the landlady, the boarders. Their lives. And I laughed—some of it was so funny I thought I’d pee. And then I hated myself.”
“Why?”
“Because John Fleming wrote it,” said Beauvoir. “And when I was laughing, part of me wondered if maybe he wasn’t so bad. Maybe he’d changed.”
He shot a glance at Gamache and saw him nod.
“You too?” he asked.
The nodding stopped.
“No. But I know more about him.”
“Then why were you nodding?”
“Because that’s what Fleming does, what he wants. He tunnels out of his cell through other people’s minds. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go alone today.”
“Because you’re immune, patron?”
“No, I’m as susceptible as you, but at least there’d only be one of us with Fleming in our heads. And for me, well, he’s already there. The damage is done.”
“But it could get worse,” he said. “And that’s why I’m here.”
After a couple of hours’ drive, the walls of the penitentiary could be seen rising out of the landscape in the middle of barren ground. The forest had been clear-cut. The ground was leveled and shaved. Any man who escaped would be seen and stopped before he reached civilization.
But no one had ever escaped from here. It was impossible to break out without help from the outside, and no one on the outside wanted any of these men back.
If there were zombies in this world, they lived behind those walls. Men who, in another day and age, would have been executed for their crimes. The mass murderers, the serial killers, the psychopaths, the criminally insane, all made their home here. They lived a demi-existence, waiting for death. Ironically, many of them waited a very, very long time for the grim reaper.
Beauvoir parked the car and they sat there a moment, contemplating the bleak walls, and guard towers, and the one tiny door. It looked like a hole.
“Adam Cohen worked here?” asked Beauvoir.
“Oui. It’s where we first met.”
Jean-Guy had not been overly impressed with Agent Cohen, but he knew Chief Inspector Gamache had taken a liking to him. And now he understood why. Anyone who could work here and keep any humanity, never mind the near naïveté that Cohen displayed, deserved respect.
“He must have hidden depths,” said Jean-Guy, getting out of the car.
“He does,” said Armand. “And I suspect every man in here does too. The question is, what are they hiding so deep down?”
“And Agent Cohen?” asked Beauvoir, as they neared the odd little door. “What’s he hiding?”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Gamache. “I’m still trying to figure out what you’re hiding.”
Beauvoir stopped and looked at his father-in-law. “What do you mean?”
“No need to get defensive.” Gamache smiled. “I meant some people keep their darkness inside, and some hide their light. You, mon ami, almost certainly have a croissant in there.”
Jean-Guy laughed and the door opened. It was such a coincidence that for a mad moment Beauvoir wondered if it was cause and effect.
And then they stepped inside the godforsaken place.
CHAPTER 36
Armand Gamache stared at John Fleming.
On the drive there, on the long walk down the institutional-green corridor flanked by heavily armed guards, through the miasma of eye-watering disinfectant and the bangs and clangs and banshee cries, he’d come up with his plan.
Look the man in the eye. Let him know you’re not disgusted, not sickened. Let him know you feel nothing.
He’s just one more item on the to-do list. Another person to be interviewed in a homicide case. Nothing more.
Nothing more.
Nothing more, Gamache had said to himself as he’d taken a seat in the interview room. Jean-Guy positioned himself by the door beside the armed guard, out of Fleming’s sight but where Gamache could see him.
But now that Fleming was sitting across the table, all planning, all questions, all strategy left Gamache. Even that thought swirled and disappeared down a drain.
His mind wasn’t just blank, it was empty. He lowered his gaze from Fleming’s eyes to Fleming’s hands. So white. One flopped over the other.
And then an image crawled out of the drain, and another, of what those pale hands had done. With an effort that actually caused him pain, Gamache looked up.
Would I meet your eyes, and stand,
rooted and speechless,
while the pavement cracked to pieces
and the sky fell down.
All he saw now was the seven-headed beast. Not an etching. Not a metaphor. But the creature John Fleming had created. Armand Gamache knew something that had eluded the court, the cops, Fleming’s prosecutors. Even his own attorneys.
He knew what John Fleming had in mind when he’d committed his crimes. The Whore of Babylon, who brought not simply the end of the world, but eternal damnation.
Gamache took a ragged breath and heard a slight wheeze as the air struggled through his throat.
Across from him, John Fleming’s mouth curved up. Like a blade.
Gamache held Fleming’s calm gaze and conjured Reine-Marie, and their children, and grandchildren, and Henri, and their friends. The chaos of Christmases. Quiet moments by the fireplace. Dancing at Annie and Jean-Guy’s wedding in Three Pines. He called up meals at Clara’s, and drinks in the bistro, and times spent on
Those muscular memories pushed and shoved and stuffed the others back into their own bedlam. Armand Gamache sat in the sterile room and smelled old garden roses in summer, and heard laughter on the village green. He tasted strong café au lait, and felt the fresh morning mist on his face.
“I’m here,” he said, his voice strong, “to talk to you about Gerald Bull and Project Babylon.”
He was rewarded by a blink. A moment of uncertainty. Of caution.
John Fleming hadn’t been expecting that statement.
“I know you. You were at my trial,” said Fleming. “You just sat and watched. Do you like to watch? Was it fun for you?”
Gamache’s expression didn’t change, but in his peripheral vision he saw Beauvoir stir and he could tell that Fleming sensed it too. A slight reaction. Exactly what he wanted.
It was the first time Gamache had heard his voice. Fleming had not testified at the trial. Armand was surprised by how soft the voice was. There was the hint of a speech impediment. Real? Or manufactured to make him appear more human, even vulnerable?
People instinctively let down their guard when they saw a limp, an illness, a flaw in someone else. Not out of compassion but because it made them feel superior. Stronger. Those people, Gamache knew, did not always last long. It was not a useful instinct.
“What do you want to know?” Fleming asked.
“I want to know how you came to be the project manager.”
“Dr. Bull was looking for someone to coordinate the day-to-day work. Not a scientist. They might be precise, but they’re not good at the big picture. I am.”
“But how did Bull hear about you?” Gamache asked, recognizing that Fleming had only partially answered the question.
“Word gets around.”
“Depending on the circles you move in,” said Gamache. “Who recommended you?”
“It could’ve been any number of happy clients. I worked for an agency that specializes in discretion.”
“Which agency was that?”
“I don’t think you’re listening closely enough. Discretion, remember?”
“Why don’t you want to tell me?” Gamache asked.
“Why do you want to know? Can it possibly matter?”
“I wasn’t so sure before,” said Gamache. “But now I’m beginning to wonder.”
The two men stared at each other.
“Tell me about the Whore of Babylon.”
And now there was a reaction. A thinning of the lips, a narrowing of the eyes. And then the razor smile again.
“I wondered when someone would come asking.” Fleming regarded Gamache as though he was Fleming’s guest and not the other way around.
“And what’s the answer?” Gamache asked.
“Who are you?” Fleming asked.
He hadn’t moved since sitting down. Not a millimeter. His hands, his head, his body remained completely still, like a mannequin. As far as Gamache could tell, he wasn’t even breathing.
There was only that one blink. And the smile. And the soft, flawed voice.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,” said Gamache conversationally, “Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Was there, from across the table, the slightest pulse of alarm?
Gamache leaned forward and whispered, “That’s who I am.”
“How do you know about the Whore of Babylon?” Fleming asked.
“Which one?” Gamache countered, and again Fleming blinked. And paused.
He has to think, thought Gamache. Which means I’m in his head now. It was not an altogether comforting thought.
“You obviously found the gun,” said Fleming.
“Obviously,” said Gamache. And waited.
“Where did you find it?” asked Fleming.
“Where you left it, of course. It’s not exactly mobile, is it?”
“Tell me where you found it,” said Fleming.
He’d become wary. He’d sensed something in Gamache. A slight hesitation, perhaps. A change of pallor, or breathing, or heartbeat. This man was a predator, with the heightened senses that went with a lifetime of stalking. And killing.
The only way to stop a predator was to be a bigger one, Gamache knew. He hadn’t survived a lifetime of catching killers by being meek or weak.
“We found Baby Babylon in Highwater,” he said casually. “Or at least what was left of the gun. The other was in the forest. As for the Whore of Babylon, well, it was hard to miss. Then we had a little chat with Al Lepage.”
He waited while Fleming digested this information.
“I told Bull he was the weak link,” said Fleming at last. “But Bull trusted the man.”
“Dr. Bull trusted you too. Seems he did not have good instincts,” said Gamache. “As it turned out, Dr. Bull was the weak link.”
Fleming studied him. Trying, Gamache sensed, to figure out how best to fillet him. Not, perhaps, physically, but intellectually, emotionally.
Gamache didn’t take his eyes off Fleming, but he was aware of Beauvoir at the door, a look of anxiety on his face. Sensing trouble.
“Yes,” said Fleming. “Gerald Bull had a good brain, but he had a huge ego and an even bigger mouth. Too many people were finding out about Project Babylon. He was even beginning to hint that Big Babylon had been built.”
Fleming shook his head slightly. It had the disconcerting effect of looking like the movement of a cheap wooden doll.
“Baby Babylon wasn’t really a secret, was it?” said Gamache. “It wasn’t meant to be. We all knew about it.”
The strategic use of “we” caught Fleming’s attention.
“That was my idea,” he said. “Build the gun on the top of a mountain, pointing into the States. Make it a ‘secret.’” His pallid hands did the air quotes.
“So that all eyes would be on it.” Gamache nodded in appreciation. “Not on the other one. The real one. And they said Gerald Bull was the genius.”
It was said sarcastically, and Fleming flushed.
“It fooled you, didn’t it?”
Gamache lifted his hands then dropped them to the cold metal table, so like an autopsy bench.
“You don’t really know who I am, do you?” said Gamache. It was like toying with a grenade. The guard at the door clutched his assault rifle tighter and even Beauvoir backed away a little.
“No one knew about Big Babylon,” said Fleming. “No one. They thought the Highwater gun was the only one, and when it failed they thought we’d failed.”
“You proved all the critics right,” said Gamache. “Project Babylon wouldn’t work. They laughed and stopped paying attention, and you quietly went about building the real thing.”
It was, Gamache had to admit, genius. A massive act of legerdemain, and the sleight of hand had worked. They were able to hide the biggest missile launcher in history because everyone was looking in the wrong direction. Until Gerald Bull’s ego roared to life.
“Of course, the real genius was Guillaume Couture,” said Gamache.
“You know about him?” said Fleming, assessing and reassessing his visitor. “Yes. We’d make a fortune, thanks to Dr. Couture.”
“Until Gerald Bull threatened the whole thing.”
Gamache took the photograph out of his pocket. He hadn’t planned to do this. In fact, his plan was not to do this. But he knew his only hope of getting information out of Fleming was to imply he already knew it.
He smoothed the picture on the metal surface then turned it around.
Fleming’s brows rose, and again his lips curled up. In his youth this man might have been attractive, but all that was gone, eaten away not by his age but by his actions.
Gamache tapped the photo. “This was taken at the Atomium in Brussels shortly before Bull was killed.”
“That’s a guess.”
“You don’t like guesses?”
“I don’t like uncertainty.”
“Is that why you killed Gerald Bull? Because he could no longer be controlled?”
“I killed him because I was asked to do it.”
Ah, thought Gamache. One piece of information.
“You probably shouldn’t have told me that,” said Gamache. “Aren’t you worried that with the gun discovered, you might be next? I’d be worried.”
He was taking a risk, he knew. But since he was in Fleming’s head, he might as well mess around and see what happened.
He saw fear in Fleming’s face and realized that this loyal agent of death was afraid of it himself. Or perhaps not so much afraid of death as the afterlife.
“Who are you?” Fleming asked yet again.
“I think you know who I am,” said Gamache.
Now he was in uncharted territory. Beyond Fleming’s head, beyond even that cavern that had once housed his heart, and into the dark and withered soul of the creature.
He was familiar with Fleming’s biography. A churchgoing, God-fearing man, he’d feared God so much he’d fled him. Into another’s arms.
That was why he’d made the Whore of Babylon. As tribute.
But now Gamache’s thoughts betrayed him. Once again the images of Fleming’s horrific offering exploded into his head. Gamache pushed, furiously shoving the pictures out of his mind. Across from him Fleming was watching closely, and now he saw what Gamache had taken pains to hide, was desperate to hide. His humanity.
“Why are you here?” Fleming snarled.
“To thank you, but also to warn you,” said Gamache, fighting to win back the advantage.
“Really? To thank me?” said Fleming.
“For your service and your silence,” said Gamache, and saw the creature pause.
“And the warning?”
Fleming’s voice had changed. The slight impediment had disappeared. The softness now sounded like quicksand. Gamache had hit on something, but he didn’t know what.
His mind raced over the case. Laurent, the missile launcher, the Whore of Babylon. Highwater. Ruth and Monsieur Béliveau. Al Lepage.
What else, what else?
The murder of Gerald Bull. Fleming had admitted to that. Gamache tossed it aside as done.
Fleming was staring at him, realization dawning that Gamache was a fraud, was afraid.
Gamache’s mind raced. Guillaume Couture, the real father of Project Babylon. Was there more? Gamache scrambled. What was he missing?
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