“I found her.” His hand tightened around her throat. “She’s mine.”
“You need to let her go.”
“I won’t.”
Gamache knelt down and looked into the little girl’s eyes. But they were unfocused. Staring blankly ahead. Her mouth was open, and she was breathing rapidly. The Canadiens tuque had fallen off, and Gamache could see her hair, blond, filthy, matted.
“Can you close your eyes?” he asked her gently. She just continued to stare. “It’s going to be all right. No one will hurt you.”
But he suspected she’d heard that before. Just before she’d been hurt. Maybe beyond repair.
“I’m here to help,” he said. “I know you might not believe it, but I am.”
Then he stood back up.
“I won’t hurt her,” he said to the man. “But I will hurt you unless you let her go, right now.”
“Fuck o—” was as far as he got.
Gamache took a long, rapid stride forward and hit the man so hard in the face that his nose broke. He dropped to the floor, bleeding, as Gamache grabbed the girl and lifted her into his arms.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, holding her tight and averting her fixed gaze from the broken man on the floor. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”
Behind him he heard the man screaming. But the sound got fainter and fainter as Gamache and the girl went down the corridor and out into the cold night.
He got her buckled into his car and gave her a chocolate bar from his glove compartment. Jean-Guy thought he didn’t know about the stash, but he did.
The girl just held it in front of her. Like a celebrant holding the cross.
“My name’s Armand,” he said, swinging the car back onto Ste.-Catherine. His voice was calm. Intentionally authoritative. “I’m with the police. You’re safe now. I promise. I have a granddaughter your age. She lives in Paris. Her name’s Florence. We call her Florie. She has a younger sister named Zora. What’s your name?”
But she remained mute. Frozen in place. Barely even blinking.
Just then the cell phone burst into life.
“We’ve got it,” said the agent. “The factory’s in an abandoned building down a side street just off St.-André, north of Ste.-Catherine. She’s gone inside. Should we go in?”
Gamache pulled over and hit his phone, about to say no, but the Montréal commander got there first.
“No” came the crisp voice. “Wait for us. We’re five minutes away. Chief Superintendent, I have you even closer.”
Gamache knew exactly the area the agents were talking about. And he was close.
He looked at the little girl. He couldn’t leave her alone in the car. But neither could he take her with him.
He scanned the street and saw the answer.
“Chief Superintendent Gamache?” came the voice of the Montréal tactical commander.
“I’ll be there in two minutes,” he said, and then, stopping the car in the middle of the street, he bundled the girl in his arms, whispering calmly, gently, “Everything’s fine. You’re safe.”
But he wondered, even as he spoke, if that was the biggest lie so far.
Pushing open the door into the diner, he looked around, then walked up to the waitress who’d served him two days earlier.
“My name’s Gamache, I’m with the Sûreté. I have to go. Please look after her until either I return or someone from the Sûreté comes to get her.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“You must.” He placed the girl in one of the booths and turned to the worn waitress. “Please.”
She held his eyes for a moment, then gave a curt nod.
“Merci.” Gamache brought out his wallet and gave her all he had. Then he knelt down and held the girl’s dirty face between his large hands. Bringing out his handkerchief, he wiped her face and said quietly, “It’ll be all right. This nice woman will bring you a hot chocolate and something to eat. No one will hurt you.”
He stood up and looked at the waitress. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
She frowned and looked unhappy about all this. But he could see it was an act.
The girl would be safe.
He left, running across the street, dodging traffic, then up St.-André. He’d pulled out his phone and called Jean-Guy.
It rang and rang as he ran.
“Patron—”
“They’ve found the factory. It’s off St.-André, north of Ste.-Catherine. You can track using my signal. And, Jean-Guy, there’s a little girl in that diner we were in, on Ste.-Catherine. Have Lacoste come and get her. Hurry.”
Without waiting for a reply, he clicked back to the map and the pulsing blue dot. And the white dot. On the horizon. Getting closer.
Beauvoir stood up and instinctively put his hand to his hip. And felt his gun there.
“I need to go.”
“But we just broke the code. We’re in.”
By then Cloutier was talking only to Ruth, who continued to scowl. Though she did seem to be seeing something, very far away.
“What do you mean, you’re going out?” demanded Lacoste’s husband.
“And so are you. You need to … drive me.”
While their neighbor looked after the kids, they drove into downtown Montréal.
“I’m not sure this’s safe,” said Isabelle’s husband, glancing around.
“It could be worse,” said Isabelle, staring out the window and wondering about the others.
Amelia was warm. Finally.
The cold that had gotten into her core and gripped her bones was letting go. Thawing.
She felt the heat slowly spreading, radiating out along her arteries and veins.
And she felt her muscles relax. Go limp. It felt … wonderful.
She’d bucked and fought, but they’d pinned her down. Here. In the factory she’d worked so hard to find.
She’d followed the man into the basement of the building and found something she’d only ever seen in class, at the academy. In training footage of raids on labs.
Hundreds of people were working at long tables. They wore protective gear. Masks. Rubber gloves. Smocks. In front of each was a scale, sensitive enough to show micrograms.
“Better stay back,” the man said. “Did you know that the Russians used carfentanil in that hostage taking a few years ago? They pumped it into the air supply, to knock everyone out. But they had no idea what they were dealing with,” he said with a laugh. “Killed most of the hostage takers and hundreds of hostages.”
“All I know is that it’s an elephant tranquilizer,” said Amelia, standing as far back as she could from the long tables and the mounds of white powder.
“It was, but this”—he gestured toward the tables—“is another generation. Evolution. It’s a wonderful thing but can also be a bit confusing. For instance, when this shit fell into our hands a few months ago, we knew what we had but didn’t know how much to put in each hit.”
He spoke matter-of-factly, as though talking about a soup recipe.
“So we experimented. As the release got closer, we began giving it to different people to see what happened.”
Amelia looked down at her arm. Then at him.
“That’s what this means. You wrote it on everyone you experimented on.”
“Yes. The name of the drug, David, and the dosage. You got a quarter gram. Others weren’t so lucky. But now we know the best hit. We don’t want to kill too many of our customers. Of course, if they’re stupid enough to take more than one dose at a time … well. Too dumb to live, I guess. Evolution.”
“You fucker. You gave it to me?”
“You brought it on. Showing up out of nowhere. Asking questions. Beating up my dealers. You didn’t think you could just arrive on the streets and take over? You really thought I’d allow it?” He laughed again, then grew serious. “I know who you really are. Not the one-eyed man. You’re as blind and stupid as the rest of them, Amelia Choquet. Cadet in the Sûreté Academy.”
“Former. I was kicked out.”
“Mmm, yes. Trafficking. And yet instead of arresting you, they just threw you out? Now, why was that?”