Gamache looked at the young man. The minister. Who cared so much for hurt souls. He was a good listener, Gamache realized. It was a rare quality, a precious quality.
He took a deep breath. It smelled musky in there, as though the air wasn’t meant to be breathed, wasn’t meant to sustain life.
Then Gamache told this young minister everything. About the kidnapping and the long and patient plot. Hidden inside their own hubris, their certainty that advance technology would uncover any threat.
They’d been wrong.
Their attackers were clever. Adaptable.
“I’ve since discovered that security people call it an ‘asymmetrical approach,’ ” Gamache smiled. “Makes it sound geometric. Logical. And I guess in some ways it was. Too logical, certainly too simple for the likes of us. The plotters wanted to destroy the La Grande dam, and how would they do it? Not with a nuclear bomb, not with cleverly hidden devices. Not by infiltrating the security services or using telecommunications or anything that left a signature that could be found and traced. They did it by working where they knew we wouldn’t look.”
“And where was that?”
“In the past. They knew they could never compete with us when it came to modern technology, so they kept it simple. So simple it was invisible to us. They relied on our hubris, our certainty that state-of-the-art technology would protect us.”
The two men’s voices were low, like conspirators, or storytellers. It felt as it must have millennia ago, when people sat together across fires and told tales.
“What was their plan?”
“Two truck bombs. And two young men willing to drive them. Cree men.”
Tom Hancock, who had been bending forward toward the story and the storyteller, leaned slowly away. He felt his back against the cold stone wall. A wall built before the Cree knew of the disaster approaching. A disaster they would even assist, guiding the Europeans to the waterways. Helping them collect the pelts.
Too late, the Cree had realized they’d made a terrible mistake.
And now, hundreds of years later some of their descendents had agreed to drive huge trucks filled with explosives along a perfectly paved ribbon of road through a forest that had once been theirs. Toward a dam thirty stories high.
They would destroy it. And themselves. Their families. Their villages. The forests, the animals. The gods. All gone. They would unleash a torrent that would sweep it all away.
In the hopes that finally someone would hear their calls for help.
“That’s what they were told, anyway,” said the Chief, suddenly weary, wishing now he could sleep.
“What happened?” whispered Tom Hancock.
“Chief Superintendent Francoeur got there in time. Stopped them.”
“Were they—?”
“Killed?” Gamache nodded. “Yes. Both shot dead. But the dam was saved.”
Tom Hancock found himself almost sorry to hear that.
“You said these young Cree men were used. You mean this wasn’t their idea?”
“No, no more than it was the truck’s idea. Whoever did this chose things ready to explode. The bombs made by them and the Cree made by us.”
“But who were they? If the two Cree men were used by the bombers, then who planned all this? Who was behind it?”
“We don’t know for sure. Most died in the raid on the factory. One survived and is being questioned but I haven’t heard anything.”
“But you have your suspicions. Were they native?”
Gamache shook his head. “Caucasian. English speaking. All well trained. Mercenaries, perhaps. The goal was the dam, but the real target seems to have been the eastern seaboard of the United States.”
“Not Canada? Not Québec?”
“No. In bringing down La Grande they would have blacked out everything from Boston to New York and Washington. And not just for an hour, but for months. It would have blown the whole grid.”
“With winter coming too.”
They paused to imagine a city like New York, millions of frightened, angry people freezing in the dark.
“Home-grown terrorists?” asked Hancock.
“We think so.”
“You couldn’t have seen this coming,” said Hancock at last. “You speak of hubris, Chief Inspector. Perhaps you need to be careful yourself.”
It was said lightly, but the words were no less sharp.
There was a slight pause before Gamache responded. It was with a small chuckle. “Very true. But you mistake me, Mr. Hancock. It wasn’t the threat I should have seen coming, but once it was in motion I should have known the kidnapping wasn’t so simple much sooner. I should have known the backwoods farmer wasn’t that. And—”
“Yes?”
“I was in over my head. We all were. There was almost no time and it was clear something massive was happening. As soon as Agent Nichol isolated the words ‘La Grande’ I knew that was it. The dam is in Cree territory so I sent an agent there to ask questions.”
“Just one agent? Surely you should have sent everyone.” Only then did Hancock stop himself. “If you need any more suggestions on tactics, come to me. They teach it, you know, at the seminary.”
He smiled and heard a small guffaw beside him. Then a deep breath.
“The Cree have no love of the S?reté. Nor should they,” said Gamache. “I judged one smart agent was enough. We have some contacts there, among the elders. Agent Lacoste went to them first.”
As the hours passed her reports had started to come in. She moved from community to community, always accompanied by the same elderly woman. A woman Chief Inspector Gamache had met years ago, sitting on a bench in front of the Chateau Frontenac. A woman everyone else had dismissed as a beggar.
He had helped her then. And she helped him now.
Agent Lacoste’s reports started to form a picture. Of a generation on the reserves without hope. Drunk and high and lost. With no life and no future and nothing to lose. It had all been taken. This Gamache already knew. Anyone with the stomach to look saw that.
But there was something he didn’t know. Lacoste had reports of outsiders arriving, teachers. White teachers, English teachers. Insinuating themselves into the communities years earlier. Most of the teachers were genuine, but a few had an agenda that went far beyond any alphabet or times table. Their curriculum would take time to achieve. The plan had started when the young men were boys. Impressionable, lost, frightened. Hungry for approval, acceptance, kindness, leadership. And the teachers had given them all that. Years it had taken to win their trust. Over those years the teachers taught them how to read and write, how to add and subtract. And how to hate. They’d also taught their students that they need not be victims any longer. They could be warriors again.
Many young Cree had toyed with the attractive idea, finally rejecting it. Sensing these were simply more white men with their own aims. But two young men had been seduced. Two young men on the verge of doing themselves in anyway.
And so they would go out in glory. Convinced the world would finally take notice.
At 11:18.
The La Grande dam would be destroyed. Two young Cree men would die. And, miles away, a young S?reté agent would be executed.
Armed with this evidence Gamache had presented it, yet again, to Chief Superintendent Francoeur. But when Francoeur had again balked, instead of reasoning with the man Gamache had allowed his temper to flare. His disdain for the arrogant and dangerous Chief Superintendent to show.
That had been a mistake. It had cost him time. And maybe more.
“What happened?”