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 Sûreté 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?”
Armand Gamache looked over, almost surprised to find he wasn’t alone with his thoughts.
“A decision had to be made. And we all knew what that was. If Agent Lacoste’s information was right we had to abandon Agent Morin. Our efforts had to go into stopping the bombing. If we tried to save Morin the bombers would be warned and might move sooner. No one could risk that.”
“Not even you?”
Gamache sat still for a very long time. There was no sound outside or inside. How many others had hidden in there against a violent world? A world not as kind, not as good, not as warm as they wished. How many fearful people had huddled where they sat? Taken refuge? Wondering when it might be safe to go out. Into the world.
“God help me, not even me.”
“You were willing to let him die?”
“If need be.” Gamache stared at Hancock, not defiantly but with a kind of wonder that decisions like that needed to be made. By him. Every day. “But not before I’d tried everything.”
“You finally convinced the Chief Superintendent?”
Gamache nodded. “With a little under two hours to go.”
“Good God,” exhaled Hancock. “That close. It came that close.”
Gamache said nothing for a moment. “We knew by then that Agent Morin was being held in an abandoned factory. Agent Nichol and Inspector Beauvoir found him by listening to the sounds and cross-referencing plane and train schedules. It was masterful investigating. He was being held in an abandoned factory hundreds of kilometers from the dam. The plotters kept themselves at a safe distance. In a town called Magog.”
“Magog?”
“Magog. Why?”
The minister looked bemused but also slightly disconcerted. “Gog and Magog?”
Gamache smiled. He’d forgotten that biblical reference.
“You will make an evil plan,” the minister quoted.
Once again Gamache saw Paul Morin at the far end of the room, bound to the chair, staring at the wall in front of him. At a clock.
Five seconds left.
“You found me,” said Morin.
Gamache took off across the room. Morin’s thin back straightened.
Three seconds left. Everything seemed to slow down. Everything seemed so clear. He could see the clock, hear the second hand thud closer to zero. See the hard metal frame chair and the rope strapped around Paul Morin.
There was no bomb. No bomb.
Behind Gamache, Beauvoir and the team rushed in. Gunshots exploded all round. The Chief leapt, to the young agent who sat up so straight.
One second left.
Gamache gathered himself. “I made one final mistake. I turned left when I should have turned right. Paul Morin had just described the sun on his face, but instead of heading to the door with light coming through, I headed for the darkened one.”