Henri abruptly stopped his dancing and stood stil , then he started to growl and slunk behind Gamache’s legs.
This was a sure sign nothing was there.
“Let’s go,” said Gamache. He turned and came face-to-face with someone else. A tal figure in a dark parka also plastered with snow. His head was covered in a hood. He stood quietly a few feet from the Chief.
“Chief Inspector Gamache,” the figure spoke, his voice clear and English.
“Yes.”
“I hadn’t expected to find you here.”
“I hadn’t expected to find you either,” Gamache shouted, struggling to make himself heard above the howling wind.
“Were you looking?” the man asked.
Gamache paused. “Not until tomorrow. I was hoping to speak to you tomorrow.”
“I thought so.”
“Is that why you’re here now?”
There was no answer. The dark figure just stood there. Henri, emboldened, crept forward. “Henri,”
Gamache snapped. “Viens ici.” And the dog trotted to
his master’s side.
“The storm seemed fortuitous,” said the man. “It makes it easier, somehow.”
“We need to talk,” said Gamache.
“Why?”
“I need to talk. Please.”
Now it was the man’s turn to pause. Then he indicated a building, a round stone turret built on the knol , like a very smal fortress. The two men and one dog trudged up the slight hil to the building and trying the door Gamache was a bit surprised to find it unlocked, but once inside he knew why.
There was nothing to steal. It was simply an empty, round, stone hut.
The Chief flicked a switch, and an exposed light bulb overhead came on. Gamache watched as his companion lowered his hood.
“I didn’t expect to find anyone out in this storm.”
Tom Hancock whacked his snow-caked hat against his leg. “I love walking in storms.”
Gamache raised his head and stared at the young minister. It was almost exactly what Agent Morin had said.
Looking round he noticed there were no seats but he indicated the floor and both men sat, making themselves comfortable against the thick stone wal s.
They were silent for a moment. Inside, without a window, without an opening, they could have been anywhere, anytime. It could have been two hundred years earlier, and outside not a storm but a battle.
“I saw the video,” Tom Hancock said. His cheeks were bril iant red and his face wet with melted snow.
Gamache suspected he looked the same only, perhaps, not quite so young and vital.
“So did I.”
“Terrible,” said Hancock. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It wasn’t quite as it looked, you know. I
—” Gamache had to stop.
“You?”
“It made me look heroic and I wasn’t. It was my fault they died.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I made mistakes. I didn’t see the magnitude of what was happening until it was almost too late. And even then I made mistakes.”
“How so?”
Gamache looked at the young man. The minister.
Who cared so much for hurt souls. He was a good listener, Gamache realized. It was a rare quality, a
precious quality.
He took a deep breath. It smel ed musky in there, as though the air wasn’t meant to be breathed, wasn’t meant to sustain life.
Then Gamache told this young minister everything.
About the kidnapping and the long and patient plot.
Hidden inside their own hubris, their certainty that advance technology would uncover any threat.
They’d been wrong.
Their attackers were clever. Adaptable.
“I’ve since discovered that security people cal it an
‘asymmetrical approach,’ ” Gamache smiled. “Makes it sound geometric. Logical. And I guess in some ways it was. Too logical, certainly too simple for the likes of us. The plotters wanted to destroy the La Grande dam, and how would they do it? Not with a nuclear bomb, not with cleverly hidden devices. Not by infiltrating
the
security
services
or
using
telecommunications or anything that left a signature that could be found and traced. They did it by working where they knew we wouldn’t look.”
“And where was that?”
“In the past. They knew they could never compete with us when it came to modern technology, so they kept it simple. So simple it was invisible to us. They relied on our hubris, our certainty that state-of-the-art technology would protect us.”
The two men’s voices were low, like conspirators, or storytel ers. It felt as it must have mil ennia ago, when people sat together across fires and told tales.
“What was their plan?”
“Two truck bombs. And two young men wil ing to drive them. Cree men.”
Tom Hancock, who had been bending forward toward the story and the storytel er, leaned slowly away. He felt his back against the cold stone wal . A wal built before the Cree knew of the disaster approaching. A disaster they would even assist, guiding the Europeans to the waterways. Helping them col ect the pelts.
Too late, the Cree had realized they’d made a terrible mistake.
And now, hundreds of years later some of their descendents had agreed to drive huge trucks fil ed with explosives along a perfectly paved ribbon of road through a forest that had once been theirs. Toward a dam thirty stories high.
They would destroy it. And themselves. Their families. Their vil ages. The forests, the animals. The
gods. Al gone. They would unleash a torrent that would sweep it al away.
In the hopes that final y someone would hear their cal s for help.
“That’s what they were told, anyway,” said the Chief, suddenly weary, wishing now he could sleep.
“What happened?” whispered Tom Hancock.
“Chief Superintendent Francoeur got there in time.
Stopped them.”
“Were they—?”
“Kil ed?” Gamache nodded. “Yes. Both shot dead.
But the dam was saved.”
Tom Hancock found himself almost sorry to hear that.
“You said these young Cree men were used. You mean this wasn’t their idea?”
“No, no more than it was the truck’s idea. Whoever did this chose things ready to explode. The bombs made by them and the Cree made by us.”
“But who were they? If the two Cree men were used by the bombers, then who planned al this? Who was behind it?”
“We don’t know for sure. Most died in the raid on the factory. One survived and is being questioned but I haven’t heard anything.”
“But you have your suspicions. Were they native?”
Gamache shook his head. “Caucasian. English speaking. Al wel trained. Mercenaries, perhaps. The goal was the dam, but the real target seems to have been the eastern seaboard of the United States.”
“Not Canada? Not Québec?”
“No. In bringing down La Grande they would have blacked out everything from Boston to New York and Washington. And not just for an hour, but for months. It would have blown the whole grid.”
“With winter coming too.”
They paused to imagine a city like New York, mil ions of frightened, angry people freezing in the dark.
“Home-grown terrorists?” asked Hancock.
“We think so.”
“You couldn’t have seen this coming,” said Hancock at last. “You speak of hubris, Chief Inspector. Perhaps you need to be careful yourself.”
It was said lightly, but the words were no less sharp.
There was a slight pause before Gamache responded. It was with a smal chuckle. “Very true. But you mistake me, Mr. Hancock. It wasn’t the threat I should have seen coming, but once it was in motion I
should have known the kidnapping wasn’t so simple much sooner. I should have known the backwoods farmer wasn’t that. And—”