They made slow progress but finally found themselves in the park. Lifting his head the Chief was briefly blinded by the snow, then squinting he could just make out the shapes of ghostly trees reeling against the wind.
The Plains of Abraham.
Gamache looked behind and noticed his boot prints had filled in, disappearing almost as quickly as he made them. He wasn’t lost, not yet, but he knew he could be if he went too far.
Henri abruptly stopped his dancing and stood still, then he started to growl and slunk behind Gamache’s legs.
This was a sure sign nothing was there.
“Let’s go,” said Gamache. He turned and came face-to-face with someone else. A tall figure in a dark parka also plastered with snow. His head was covered in a hood. He stood quietly a few feet from the Chief.
“Chief Inspector Gamache,” the figure spoke, his voice clear and English.
“Yes.”
“I hadn’t expected to find you here.”
“I hadn’t expected to find you either,” Gamache shouted, struggling to make himself heard above the howling wind.
“Were you looking?” the man asked.
Gamache paused. “Not until tomorrow. I was hoping to speak to you tomorrow.”
“I thought so.”
“Is that why you’re here now?”
There was no answer. The dark figure just stood there. Henri, emboldened, crept forward. “Henri,” Gamache snapped. “Viens ici.” And the dog trotted to his master’s side.
“The storm seemed fortuitous,” said the man. “It makes it easier, somehow.”
“We need to talk,” said Gamache.
“Why?”
“I need to talk. Please.”
Now it was the man’s turn to pause. Then he indicated a building, a round stone turret built on the knoll, like a very small fortress. The two men and one dog trudged up the slight hill to the building and trying the door Gamache was a bit surprised to find it unlocked, but once inside he knew why.
There was nothing to steal. It was simply an empty, round, stone hut.
The Chief flicked a switch, and an exposed light bulb overhead came on. Gamache watched as his companion lowered his hood.
“I didn’t expect to find anyone out in this storm.” Tom Hancock whacked his snow-caked hat against his leg. “I love walking in storms.”
Gamache raised his head and stared at the young minister. It was almost exactly what Agent Morin had said.
Looking round he noticed there were no seats but he indicated the floor and both men sat, making themselves comfortable against the thick stone walls.
They were silent for a moment. Inside, without a window, without an opening, they could have been anywhere, anytime. It could have been two hundred years earlier, and outside not a storm but a battle.
“I saw the video,” Tom Hancock said. His cheeks were brilliant red and his face wet with melted snow. Gamache suspected he looked the same only, perhaps, not quite so young and vital.
“So did I.”
“Terrible,” said Hancock. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It wasn’t quite as it looked, you know. I—” Gamache had to stop.
“You?”
“It made me look heroic and I wasn’t. It was my fault they died.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I made mistakes. I didn’t see the magnitude of what was happening until it was almost too late. And even then I made mistakes.”
“How so?”
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.”