The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

“Someone does, Clara. The gun was built here, just outside Three Pines, for a reason.”


“Exactly. Why? What’s its purpose? Does it work? Who built it?”

Unfortunately they were all questions he genuinely couldn’t answer.

*

Reine-Marie Gamache, relieved of physicist duty, wandered over to where Isabelle Lacoste was talking with Mary Fraser.

Someone who seemed less like an intelligence agent would be hard to find, though Mary Fraser did look very intelligent, thought Reine-Marie, but not exactly sharp. More the slow, steady, often frightening mind, that took its time and arrived at a conclusion others might miss or did not want to see.

Having worked in archives and research all her professional life, Reine-Marie knew and admired that type of mind, though they could be a little frustrating to work with. They were often stubborn. Once a conclusion was finally reached they were loath to leave it, since it had taken so long to get there.

“Lots of people spent lots of time in the early nineties looking, but the plans were never found,” Mary Fraser was telling Isabelle Lacoste.

“Who were these people?”

Mary Fraser gave Reine-Marie a swift glance.

Reine-Marie veered away, recognizing this was not a conversation she should interrupt.

“Arms dealers hoping to sell the plans,” said Mary Fraser, once Madame Gamache had walked out of earshot. “Or intelligence agencies hoping to suppress them.”

“Including CSIS?” asked Isabelle Lacoste.

“Yes. We looked for them but weren’t successful. After a while most agencies gave up, thinking either the plans to Dr. Bull’s Supergun never existed, just another of his fantasies, or, if real, it had become obsolete, overtaken by advances in technology. Project Babylon would be just an oddity now. Everyone lost interest.”

“Except you.”

“And him.” She pointed to Professor Rosenblatt, now deep in conversation with Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

“But now we have the Supergun,” said Lacoste. “It proves everyone wrong, and Gerald Bull right. The plans just got valuable, didn’t they?”

“I don’t think ‘valuable’ quite covers it,” said Mary Fraser. “With the discovery of the gun they just got priceless.”

She sounded triumphant, as though the accomplishment was her own. And in a way it was. The find had vindicated her and Delorme. Thrust them into the spotlight at CSIS. They’d gone from low-level functionaries correlating useless information in the basement to valuable resources. Priceless in their own way.

“Governments would pay a great deal for the plans?” asked Isabelle.

“Not just governments. Anyone with money and a target.” Mary Fraser glanced quickly over to Professor Rosenblatt. “Have you wondered why he’s still here? He’s identified the gun, done what you asked. He’s supposed to be retired. Shouldn’t he be at home, or in Florida, or somewhere else? Relaxing.”

“What do you think?”

“I think weapons of mass destruction are a strange hobby,” said Mary Fraser. “Don’t you?”

Isabelle Lacoste had to agree.

*

“He worked for Gerald Bull, did he tell you that?” said Delorme, looking across the room to where Rosenblatt and Beauvoir were talking.

“He did,” said Gamache.

“He insinuates that he was more than just some assistant, but he hasn’t contributed a thing to the field.”

Again with the “field,” thought Gamache. For something that was supposed to be covert, that field seemed surprisingly large and crowded.

“Was he good at what he did?” Armand asked.

“Rosenblatt?” said Delorme. “We studied him, you know, thinking with Dr. Bull dead then Rosenblatt might be the next best thing, and perhaps even better. But all his research hit dead ends.”

“I thought he helped design the Avro Arrow jet fighter,” said Gamache.

“Peripherally, yes. But it wasn’t a contribution someone else couldn’t have made. And the Arrow was scrapped, so again, we’re back to nothing. Professor Rosenblatt has nothing to show for fifty years’ work. Had he never lived, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

It was such a brutal thing to say, and said so casually, that Gamache found himself reassessing this man. Perhaps it was just the unthinking utterance of a socially and emotionally inept person. Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe he genuinely loathed the man.

“Michael Rosenblatt’s genius is attaching himself to brilliant people,” said Delorme. “He’s a leech. And now he’s trying to take credit for the Supergun.”

“Credit?” asked Gamache. “Can such a word be applied to such a thing?”

“You might not like it,” said Delorme, “and I might not, but the Supergun is a remarkable achievement. That’s just a fact. What we don’t really know is what Gerald Bull planned to do with it. The problem is that it’s an ever-changing world. Friends become enemies, and the weapons you sold them are suddenly killing your own people.”