Aqueduct had gone bankrupt, but as so often happened, it was reborn under another name. One company morphed into another. From sewers and waterways, to roads, to construction materials.
The Chief Inspector took a seat and continued to read the screen, trying to figure out why the Chief Superintendent of the S?reté was desperate to keep these files secret. So far they seemed not simply benign, but dull. All about construction materials, and soil samples, and rebar and stress tests.
And then he had an idea. A suspicion.
“Can you go back to where we tripped the first alarm?”
“But that’s nothing to do with this company,” Jér?me explained. “It was a schedule of repairs on Autoroute 20.”
But Gamache was staring at the screen, waiting for Dr. Brunel to comply. And he did. Or tried to.
“It’s gone, Armand. Not there anymore.”
“I have to get out, sir,” said Nichol, rattled into courtesy. “I’ve stayed too long. They’ll find me soon.”
*
“Almost there,” Charpentier reported. “Another few seconds. Come on, come on.” His fingers flew over the keys. “I’ve got you, you little shit.”
“Ninety percent of the files are destroyed,” said Lambert from across her office. “Not many places he can go. Do you have him?”
There was silence, except for the rapid clicking of keys.
“Do you have him, Charpentier?”
“Fuck.”
The clicking stopped. Lambert had her answer.
*
“I’m out,” said Nichol, and sat back in her chair for the first time in hours. “That was too close. They almost got me.”
“Are you sure they didn’t?” asked Jér?me.
Nichol lugged herself forward and hit a few keys, then took a deep breath. “No. Just missed. Christ.”
Dr. Brunel looked from his wife to Gamache to Nichol. Then back to Thérèse.
“Now what?”
*
“Now what?” Charpentier asked. He was pissed off. He hated being bested, and whoever was on the other end had done just that.
It’d been close. So close that for an instant Charpentier had thought he had him. But at the last moment, poof. Gone.
“Now we call in the others and look again,” said Chief Inspector Lambert.
“You think he’s still in the system?”
“He didn’t get what he came for.” She turned back to her monitor. “So yes, I think he’s still there.”
Charpentier got up to go into the main room. To tell the other agents, all specialists in cyber searches, to go back in. To find the person who’d hacked into their own system. Who’d violated their home.
As he closed the door, he wondered how Inspector Lambert knew what the intruder was looking for. And he wondered what could be so important to the intruder that he’d risk everything to find it.
*
“Now we take a break,” said Gamache, getting up. His muscles were sore and he realized he’d been tensing them for hours.
“But they’ll be searching for us even harder now,” said Nichol.
“Let them. You need a break. Go for a walk, clear your head.”
Both Nichol and Jér?me looked unconvinced. Gamache glanced at Gilles, then back at them.
“You’re forcing me to do something I don’t want to do. Gilles here teaches yoga in his spare time. If you’re not up and headed for the door in thirty seconds, I’ll order you to take a class from him. His downward dog is spectacular, I hear.”
Gilles stood up, stretched, and walked forward.
“I could use some chakra work,” he admitted.
Jér?me and Nichol got up and made for their parkas and the door. Gilles joined Gamache by the woodstove.
“Thanks for playing along,” the Chief said.
“What ‘playing along’? I actually teach a yoga class. Want to see?”
Gilles stood on one foot and slowly moved his other leg around, lifting his arms.
Gamache raised his brows and approached Thérèse, who was also watching.
“I’m waiting for the downward dog,” she confided as she put on her coat. “You coming?”
“No. I’d like to read some more.”
Superintendent Brunel followed his gaze to the terminals.
“Be careful, Armand.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to spill coffee into it. I just want to go back over some of what Jér?me found.”
She left, taking Henri with her, while Gamache pulled his chair up to the computer and started reading. Ten minutes later Gamache felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jér?me.
“Can I get in?”
“You’re back.”
“We’ve been back for a few minutes, but didn’t want to disturb you. Find anything?”
“Why did they erase that file, Jér?me? Not Aqueduct, though that’s an interesting question too. But the first one you found. The construction schedule on the highway. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe they’re just erasing everything we looked at,” suggested Nichol.
“Why would they take the time to do that?” asked Thérèse.
Nichol shrugged. “Dunno.”
“You need to go back in,” Jér?me said to Nichol. “How close did they get to you? Did they get your address?”