“Why does it always come down to that?” demanded Beauvoir.
“Because we can’t separate our personal experiences from our professional choices,” said Gamache. “If we think we can, we’re deluding ourselves. We have to admit it, examine our motives, and then make a rational decision.”
“You think I’m being irrational? You’re the one who’s always accusing me of not trusting my instincts. Well, you know what they’re telling me now? Not just my instincts, but yes, my experience?”
Beauvoir was all but shouting at Gamache.
“This is a huge mistake,” said Beauvoir, lowering his voice to a growl. “Allowing that much fentanyl into the U.S. could change the course of a generation. You want to know about my personal stake? Here it is. You’ve never been addicted,” he said. “You have no idea what it’s like. And opioids? Designer drugs? They get right into you. Change you. Turn you into something horrible. Everyone keeps repeating, ‘eighty kilos.’” He waved toward the door and the conference room across the hall. “What’s heading for the border isn’t a weight, isn’t a number. There’s no measure for the misery that’s heading our way. A slow and wretched death. And not just for the addicts you’re about to create, but how about all the other lives that’ll be ruined? How many people, alive today, healthy today, will die, sir, or kill? Because of your ‘rational’ decision?”
“You’re right,” said Gamache. “You’re absolutely right.”
He waved toward the sitting area of his office. After a moment’s hesitation, as though weighing if it was a trap, Jean-Guy took his usual chair, sitting stiffly on the edge.
Gamache sat back, trying to get comfortable. Abandoning that, he too sat forward.
“There’s a theory that Winston Churchill knew about the German bombing of the English city of Coventry before it happened,” he said. “And he did nothing to stop it. The bombing killed hundreds of men and women and children.”
Beauvoir’s tense face slackened. But he said nothing.
“The British had cracked the German code,” Gamache explained. “But to act would’ve meant letting them know that. Coventry would have been saved. Hundreds of lives would’ve been saved. But the Germans would’ve changed the code and the Allies would have lost a huge advantage.”
“How many were saved because of that decision?” Beauvoir asked.
It was a terrible calculus.
Gamache opened his mouth, then closed it. And looked down at his hands.
“I don’t know.”
Then he raised his gaze to Beauvoir’s steady eyes. “There’s some suggestion the English never did use their knowledge, for fear of losing their advantage.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Though it was clear he was not.
“What good’s an advantage if you’re not going to use it?” Beauvoir asked. More astonished than angry. “And if they allowed the bombing of that city—”
“Coventry.”
“—what else did they allow?”
Gamache shook his head. “It’s a good question. When do you use up all your currency? When are you being strategic, and when are you being a miser, hoarding it? And the longer you hold it, the harder it is to give up. If you have only one shot, Jean-Guy, when do you take it? And how do you know when that time comes?”
“Or maybe when you finally do take that shot, it’s too late. You’ve waited too long,” said Beauvoir. “The damage done is way more than any good you could do.”
All of Beauvoir’s rage had dissipated as he looked at Chief Superintendent Gamache. Struggling with that question.
“People will die, Jean-Guy, when that fentanyl hits the streets. Young people. Older people. Children, perhaps. It will be a firestorm.”
Gamache thought of his visit to Coventry with Reine-Marie, many years after the bombing. The city had been rebuilt, but they’d kept the shell of the cathedral. It had become a symbol.
He and Reine-Marie had stood a long time in front of the altar of the ruined cathedral.
Just days after the bombing, someone had etched words into one of the walls.
Father Forgive.
But forgive whom? The Luftwaffe? Goering, who unleashed the bombers, or Churchill, who chose not to stop them?
Was it courage or a terrible misjudgment on the part of the British leaders, safe in their homes and offices and bunkers hundreds of miles away?
As he was safe, high above the streets of Montréal. Far from the firestorm he was about to unleash. Saint Michael, he remembered. Coventry Cathedral had been dedicated to the archangel. The gentle one who came for the souls of the dying.
He glanced down at his index finger and was surprised to see a bright blue line. As though the eighty kilos of fentanyl would be traveling straight through him on its way south.
Armand Gamache stood astride the route from the Magdalen Islands to the U.S. border. A line that passed through an insignificant little village in a valley.
He had a chance, now, the power to stop it.
Gamache knew he would be marked for the rest of his life by the decision he was making this night.
“Isn’t there something you can do?” asked Jean-Guy, his voice hushed.
Gamache remained silent.
“Have a quiet word with the DEA? Warn them?” Jean-Guy suggested.
But he knew that wouldn’t happen.
Gamache’s jaw was tight, and he swallowed, but said nothing. His deep brown eyes remained on his second-in-command. His son-in-law.
“How long do you think it will take the fentanyl to reach the border?” Gamache asked.
“If it left immediately? It should cross tomorrow night. Maybe sooner. It might already be on its way.”
Gamache nodded.
“But there’s probably still time to intercept,” said Beauvoir, though he knew what he really meant was that there was time for Gamache to change his mind.
But he also knew that would not happen. And deep down, Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew it should not happen.
The fentanyl had to cross the border. Their secret had to be protected.
To be used later. In the final coup de grace.
Armand Gamache nodded and, getting up, he headed to the door. And he wondered if, when he left his office that night to return to the small apartment he and Reine-Marie kept in Montréal, a dark figure would detach itself from the shadows and follow him.
Come to collect a debt Chief Superintendent Gamache knew he could never repay.
All he could really hope for was forgiveness.
CHAPTER 8
“I thought you said this was going to be a fast trial,” said Judge Corriveau’s wife, Joan. “Will we be able to go away this weekend?”
Maureen Corriveau moaned. “I don’t know. Can we get out of the reservations if we have to?”
“I’ll call the inn and see. Don’t worry, we can always go away another weekend. Vermont will be there.”
Maureen grabbed a piece of toast, kissed Joan, and whispered, “Thank you.”
“Off you go, and play nice,” said Joan.
“It’s my sandbox. I don’t have to play nice.”
She looked outside. It was barely seven in the morning and already the sun was beating down.