The Nature Of The Beast Part 47

"Murder puts you on the safe side?" Gamache asked.

"Sometimes, yes." Rosenblatt stared at the former head of homicide. "Don't tell me you've never thought that."

"And is this the 'safe side'?" Gamache asked. "We're half a kilometer from a weapon that could wipe out every major city down the East Coast, never mind Europe."

Rosenblatt leaned closer to Gamache. "Like it or not, the death of Gerald Bull meant Project Babylon did not end up in the hands of the Iraqis. They'd have won the war. They'd have taken over the whole region. They'd have wiped out Israel and anyone else who stood up to them. In a dangerous world, Monsieur Gamache, this is the safe side."

"If this is so safe," said Gamache, "why are you so afraid?"

CHAPTER 32.

Clara confided her suspicions to Myrna.

As she spoke she became more convinced. Sometimes, on saying things out loud, especially to Myrna, Clara could see how ludicrous they were.

But not this time. This time they jelled.

"What should I do?" asked Clara.

"You know what you have to do."

"I hate it when you say that," said Clara, sipping her white wine.

Across from her Myrna smiled, but it was fleeting, unable to penetrate beyond what Clara had just told her.

They hadn't noticed the two men in the dark corner until one of them got up.

Clara nodded to Professor Rosenblatt as he walked by their table. He didn't stop but continued to, and out, the door. Then they turned their attention to the person left behind.

Armand was either staring after the scientist or into s.p.a.ce. He seemed to make up his mind. Getting up, he walked to the bar, and placed a phone call, turning his back to the room as he spoke. Then he returned to the table, wedged snug into the corner.

Clara got up, followed by Myrna, and slipped into seats on either side of him.

"I think I've found something interesting," said Clara. "But I'm not sure."

"She's sure," said Myrna.

"Tell me," said Armand, turning his full and considerable attention to her.

"Take a seat." Isabelle Lacoste indicated the conference table in the Incident Room. Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme joined Inspector Beauvoir, who was already there.

"Project Babylon wasn't one missile launcher," said Beauvoir without preamble. "It was two. Why didn't you tell us this before?"

Gamache had called them from the bistro after Professor Rosenblatt confirmed there were two guns, christened with the unlikely names Baby Babylon and Big Babylon.

Mary Fraser was perfectly contained, in her drab way. Isabelle Lacoste had the impression that the middle-aged woman should have a ball of knitting in her lap like some benign presence, there to calm and soothe infants who were acting out.

"Is it?" asked Mary Fraser.

Isabelle Lacoste leaned slightly forward and, lowering her voice, she said, "Highwater."

It was like throwing a boulder into a small pond. Everything changed.

"But Baby Babylon didn't work-" said Mary Fraser.

"Mary," Sean Delorme interrupted.

"They already know, Sean."

Now it was his turn to stare at his colleague. "You knew they'd found out about Highwater and you didn't tell me?"

"I forgot."

"That's not possible," he said, examining her.

"This isn't the time to discuss it."

Her words mirrored their exchange when they'd first arrived in Three Pines. Their little tiff over driving. Then it had been almost endearing, now it was chilling. And by the look on Sean Delorme's face, he felt it too. With one more quick glance at his partner, he turned back to the Srete investigators.

"Have you been there?"

"Up the hill, following the tracks?" said Beauvoir.

Delorme shifted in his chair, took a breath, and nodded.

Mary Fraser, however, sat absolutely still, composed. Frozen.

"We knew about the one in Highwater, but not the other," she admitted.

"You went there," said Lacoste.

"Yes. To confirm that the pieces were still there and hadn't also been made to work. But I admit, Big Babylon came as a genuine shock."

Neither Lacoste nor Beauvoir were swallowing this whole. There was very little "genuine" about these two.

"Why didn't you tell us about Highwater?" said Lacoste.

"That a giant gun had been built, with our knowledge, on the border with the U.S. thirty-five years ago?" asked Mary Fraser. "Not exactly dinner table conversation."

"This isn't a dinner table," Lacoste snapped. "This is a murder investigation. Multiple murders, and you had valuable information."

"We had nothing," said Mary Fraser. "How does it help find your killer to know about a long-abandoned and failed experiment?"

Jean-Guy reached into the evidence box and brought out the pen set and the bookends and placed them on the table in front of him, then, without a word, Isabelle Lacoste picked them up, manipulating them.

The CSIS agents watched with mild curiosity that became astonishment as they realized what she was doing.

After the final piece clicked into place, she put it on the table in front of Mary Fraser. It was Sean Delorme who picked it up and examined it.

"The firing mechanism?" he finally asked.

"Oui," said Lacoste. "In case you didn't know, that"-she thrust her finger toward the a.s.sembled piece-"is a pretty good representation of a homicide investigation. All sorts of apparently unrelated and unimportant pieces come together to form something lethal. But we can't solve a case if people are keeping information from us."

"Like a big G.o.dd.a.m.ned gun on the top of a hill," said Beauvoir. "The baby brother of the one in the woods."

Mary Fraser took this in but seemed unmoved, and Lacoste suspected it was because to her secrets were as valuable as information. She was not designed to give up either.

"Where did you find it?" He held it up.

When Lacoste didn't answer, he looked back down at the thing in his hand. "Well, wherever it was, I'm glad you did. This could've been big trouble."

"Big trouble," Beauvoir repeated. "Maybe that's why it's called Big Babylon."

"You think this is funny?" Mary Fraser asked in exactly the same clipped tone his teacher had used when he'd hit Gaston Devereau in the nose with a baseball. All that was missing was the "young man?"

"Do you know what the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was called?" she asked, confirming Beauvoir's image of her.

"Big Boy." Mary Fraser let that sink in. "Big Boy killed hundreds of thousands. Big Babylon would do worse. Unlike you, Gerald Bull knew his history and knew his clients would too. He also knew the power of symbolism. He comes from a long and proud tradition of making a weapon even more terrifying by appearing to belittle it."

"Proud tradition?" asked Lacoste.

"Well, a long one."

Lacoste walked to the window. "If it's so dangerous, why haven't you called in the army? The air force?" She scanned the skies. "There should be helicopters overhead and troops on the ground guarding the thing."

She turned back to the CSIS agents.

"Where is everyone?" she asked.

Sean Delorme smiled. "Don't you think it might be better not to advertise? The bigger the weapon, the greater the need for secrecy."

"The bigger the secret, the greater the danger," said Lacoste. "Don't you think?"

Armand listened to Clara and Myrna, his face opening with wonder.

"Are you sure?"

"No, not really," Clara admitted. "I'd have to see them again. I was going to go over there."

"You need to tell Chief Inspector Lacoste," said Gamache. "She and Inspector Beauvoir are at the old train station. Whatever happens, don't tell anyone else. Does Professor Rosenblatt know?"

"No. It didn't come to me until later."

"Good."

Clara stood up. "Coming with us?"

They walked together to the door of the bistro.

"No, there's someone else I want to see."

"Want to?" asked Myrna, following his gaze.

"Have to," admitted Armand.

They parted, Clara and Myrna walking over the bridge to the Incident Room and pa.s.sing the CSIS agents just leaving. Gamache walked the few paces to the bench on the village green and took a seat beside Ruth and Rosa.

"What do you want?" Ruth asked. Rosa looked surprised.

"I want to know why you wrote those lines from the Yeats poem when you heard that Antoinette had been killed."

The rain had stopped, and water beaded on the wood. It now soaked into his jacket and the legs of his slacks.

"I happen to know the poem and like it," said Ruth. "I've heard you quote it often enough. About things falling apart."

"True. But those weren't the lines you chose."

"f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k," muttered either Rosa or Ruth. It was impossible to say which had just spoken. They were beginning to meld into one creature, though Ruth was more easily ruffled.

"You know more than you're saying," said Gamache.

"True. I know the whole poem. Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer. What's a gyre?"

"I have no idea," Gamache admitted. "I think I looked it up once."

Ruth stared into the late-afternoon sky as the clouds broke up and the sun broke through. Sparrows and robins and crows descended, gathering on the green.

"No vultures," she said. "Always a good sign."

He smiled. "You needn't worry. You'll live forever."

"I hope not." She broke up some bread and pelted it at the head of a sparrow. "Poor Laurent. Who kills a child?"

"Who is slouching toward Bethlehem?" Gamache asked. "Who is the rough beast?"

When she didn't answer, he stopped her hand before she could cast the morsel of bread, and held her gently, but firmly, until she looked at him.

"Yeats called that poem 'The Second Coming,'" he said, letting go of her thin wrist. "It's about hope, rebirth. But that only happens after a death, after the apocalypse, after the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon has arrived in Armageddon."