The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

Beauvoir lowered the hand holding the scroll.

“No, you can’t,” said Professor Rosenblatt, stepping forward. Delorme and Fraser glanced over to him, and in the moment it took to turn back, Beauvoir had swung his arm behind him and was holding the plans for Project Babylon over the fire.

Delorme raised the gun and took aim, but Gamache stepped between him and his son-in-law, spreading his arms out.

“Non.”

The act was so unexpected, the sequence of events so rapid, that Delorme hesitated.

“You’ll have to kill us all,” said Gamache. “Are you prepared to do that?”

“If you’re prepared to die, we’re prepared to do it,” said Mary Fraser. “The few for the many, remember?”

“You have a warped idea of the greater good,” snapped Beauvoir. “For your information, this is what it looks like.”

He dropped the plans in the fireplace just as Professor Rosenblatt stepped in front of Gamache. Behind him, Armand heard a whoooosh as the design for Project Babylon went up in flames.

“Shit,” shouted Delorme, and shoving the professor aside, he scrambled toward the fireplace, but Gamache and Beauvoir grabbed him, knocking the gun from his hand.

It was over in a matter of moments, the time it took for the plans to be fully consumed by the fire. Beauvoir held on to Delorme while Gamache’s eyes swept the room.

Mary Fraser had taken a few steps forward but stopped when she saw it was too late. Now her eyes were on Professor Rosenblatt, who’d stooped and picked up the gun.

Gamache turned to him too, and there was a pause. As long as a breath, it seemed to last forever, as the elderly scientist held the weapon and looked at them. And they looked at him.

And then he handed the gun to Gamache.

“Well, it’s over,” said Gabri, walking into the bistro from the kitchen. “Almost the whole newscast on the goddamned gun.”

He stopped and Olivier, directly behind him, bumped into him and was about to say something when he saw what was happening.

Mary Fraser looked at them, then she turned to Gamache. Her face was pale and she trembled with rage. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

She looked from him to Beauvoir and finally to the elderly scientist.

“Gabri’s right,” said Beauvoir. “It’s over.”

He released Delorme, shoving him toward Mary Fraser.

“You’re a fool,” said Mary Fraser. “It’s not over. It’s barely begun.”

“Aren’t you going to stop them?” asked Rosenblatt as the CSIS agents made for the door.

“Let them go,” said Gamache, walking swiftly to the bar and the telephone. “There’s something more important right now.”

He dialed Lacoste.

*

John Fleming felt the full sun on his face for the first time in decades, without the shadow of bars and barbed wire and guard towers.

It was getting late, later than the young agent knew, thought Fleming as he followed him to the unmarked car.

Fleming had known this day would come. He knew he’d be free again, one day. He’d felt it in his bones. He’d waited patiently for it. Planned for it. And now he was about to execute that plan.

He watched the young man’s back and heard the tall grasses sway in the meadow and smelled the distant pine forest in the cool evening air. His senses, dormant for years, were sharper, more powerful than ever.

He could even smell the musky fear soaked into Adam Cohen’s uniform. Fleming drank all this in as he slouched toward the car.

*

Fraser and Delorme were barely out the door when Gamache heard Lacoste pick up the phone. Without waiting for hello, he spoke.

“We found the plans. Call Cohen. Stop him.”

In the Incident Room, Lacoste hung up and hit the speed dial. And listened to the first ring. The second.

*

“Wait,” said Cohen when they reached the car and the guard was about to transfer the prisoner into the backseat.

He brought out his device.

Still nothing.

Cohen replaced it in his pocket and nodded to his friend.

*

Lacoste tried again, this time punching in the numbers herself, carefully.

Cohen’s phone rang. And rang.

After the fifth ring, she hung up. It hadn’t even switched over to voice mail.

Then she tried texting. It bounced back.

“Well?” asked Gamache, as he, Beauvoir and shortly after them an out-of-breath Professor Rosenblatt arrived in the Incident Room.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?” Beauvoir demanded.

“He’s not answering,” she said. “Not to the phone and the text bounced back.”

“What could that mean?” Beauvoir asked, but Gamache did not. He knew what it could mean.

*

John Fleming was locked into the backseat of the secure vehicle, handcuffed to the metal plate, restraints around his arms and legs.

The guard tested them, tugging on them to make sure they were secure.

“He’s all yours,” said Cohen’s friend, handing him the keys. “You’ll have to sign for him.”

He gave Cohen his own device and indicated where he needed to sign.