A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(29)

“I can’t see that working,” said Toussaint.

“Why not?” Gamache asked, apparently genuinely interested. “What’re you thinking?”

“I think it would take far too much equipment to do anything effective,” she said. “We’d have to divert some from the dams, and that’s just too dangerous. It would leave them vulnerable.”

“That’s a good point,” said Gamache, returning to stare at the map.

“Still,” said the RCMP officer. “If we could, it would relieve some of the smaller rivers. We could divert the water before it gets to the big rivers.”

“Chief Superintendent Toussaint is right,” said the head of the Corps of Engineers. “It would take a huge amount of equipment and personnel, and we just don’t have the resources for that. The crisis is moving quickly and is widespread. Emergencies have just been declared in Ontario and the Maritime provinces. We’re deploying across the east.”

“Wait a minute,” said the politician. “Are you saying that not only are you not giving us more people and equipment, you’re actually taking some away?”

“I was going to tell you,” said the colonel.

“When? When we’re treading water?”

“The Van Doos will be assigned to help, but that’s all,” said the colonel, refusing to be provoked. “We need the other regiments for other areas.”

Gamache straightened up. The Royal 22e Régiment of the Canadian Armed Forces was based just outside Québec City. A storied regiment, affectionately nicknamed the Van Doos, they’d be, Gamache knew, a formidable help in any emergency and had already been deployed.

But they would not be enough. Not nearly.

He, along with everyone else in the room, looked with some dismay at the senior armed forces engineer, who dropped her eyes before meeting their stares again.

“Désolée.”

As were they.

“But if you redirect most of the resources we do have, it could be done,” pressed the RCMP officer.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said the Deputy Premier.

“You don’t like the idea of setting off explosions, you don’t like redirecting resources,” said the Mountie. “You demand action, then refuse to actually act.”

Toussaint turned to Gamache, seeing her chance. “What do you suggest?”

Two people could play at humility, and this would put him not in the driver’s seat but in the hot seat.

“It’s a risk,” agreed Gamache. “But one I think we need to take.”

“Just to be clear,” said the Hydro rep. “Are you suggesting removing the equipment and teams from the dams?”

“Yes,” said Gamache, nodding slowly. He turned to the chief meteorologist. “You said it yourself. The thaw hasn’t hit there yet. Might not. Why keep precious resources there when they’re needed down south, where the crisis isn’t just imminent, it’s upon us.”

“Because if the dams go, we’re blown back into the Stone Age,” said Toussaint. “If there’s a flash thaw, like there has been down south, we’re screwed. We won’t be able to get the workers and equipment back up there fast enough. If even one of those dams breaks…”

She didn’t need to say more. They all finished her thought.

Hundreds of millions of tons of water would be released, shooting straight down the province. Gathering ice and debris. Trees. Houses, cars, bridges. Animals. People.

Until much of Québec was smeared across Vermont.

“So we have a choice,” said the colonel. “Keep the dams safe and guarantee terrible flooding down south. Or risk the dams.”

“Like you say,” said the RCMP officer. “One’s a risk, the other’s a certainty.”

“To put it another way,” said the colonel. “One’s catastrophic, the other’s Armageddon.”

It sounded melodramatic, but anyone who’d witnessed a tidal wave, a tsunami, would know it was no exaggeration.

The Deputy Premier moaned.

“Bet you’re glad you’re not sitting in my seat now,” Toussaint said to Gamache.

He smiled. “I’m glad you’re in this office, yes. We all are.”

She doubted that was true. “Any more advice, Armand?”

He thought, looking at the map. “I think you should open the sluice gates at the dams now. As a precaution—”

“But we’d lose power,” said the Hydro rep, and the politician moaned again.

“Non. You’d lose money. But we both know you have plenty of power in reserve you could use.” Gamache stared at the executive. “We won’t be shivering in the cold and dark just yet.”

That had been a threat, by Hydro, by politicians, for decades, justifying all sorts of draconian measures by the massive utility.

There was a long silence before the Hydro exec gave a curt nod. The politician just glared at Gamache. The old lie exposed.

“You keep one team at the most vulnerable dam,” said Gamache. “In case opening the gates isn’t enough. Then redirect all possible resources to digging those runoffs, the spillways along the tributaries.”

“Merci,” Toussaint said, in an attempt to interrupt. To stop this torrent of advice.