All the Devils Are Here(116)

Dussault turned and began walking toward the Seine. But Armand reached out, grabbed his arm, and swung him around.

“What’ve you done?” he demanded. “Where is he?”

“He’s safe.” Dussault held his eyes. “But you know what they can do. And will do. What you don’t know is what they’ve already done. Those three, Plessner, Horowitz, the journalist? They’re not even the tip of the iceberg. You have no idea how powerful these people are. And now, thanks to your godfather, how desperate.”

“Are you threatening to hurt Daniel?” When Dussault didn’t answer, or blink, Armand lowered his voice. “If you touch my son, I’ll bring holy hell down on you.”

“Too late,” said Dussault. “It’s already here. The funny thing about Hell is that we assume it’s obvious. Fire, brimstone. We’ll be plunged into it by some horrific event in our lives. But the truth is, Hell can be as subtle as Heaven.” He looked around. “Sometimes we don’t recognize we’ve wandered into Hell until it’s too late.”

“Where’s Daniel?”

Dussault focused on the man in front of him. “Know this, Armand. I tried to help. If something happens to Daniel, or any member of your family, it won’t be on me. It’ll be your fault.”

“Where’s Daniel?”

“You bumbled in, you and your little group, like some amateur theater troupe putting on a show.” Dussault shook his head. “You think you’re so clever, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Going to the basement and whispering about Patagonia. You thought you were moving forward, but that’s an illusion. You don’t even see the truck hurtling toward you. It’s two feet away and you can’t stop it. You and your family are nothing more than bugs on a windshield to these people.”

Gamache grabbed Claude Dussault, lifting him almost off the ground. Bringing the shorter man to eye level. Within millimeters of his face.

“Where’s my son?”

“Put me down.” Dussault’s voice was strangled by his coat. “Or it ends now.”

Gamache’s grip tightened. Then, against every instinct he possessed, his clenched and cramped fingers released the coat.

Dussault had all but admitted there were snipers aimed at him. If he went down, all was lost.

If Daniel was to have a chance, if any of them were, he had to think clearly. Act rationally.

Gamache took several deep breaths and brought the thudding in his chest under control. “You asked for this meeting before you took Daniel. You want something.”

Dussault raised his brows. Gamache had recovered his senses far faster than he’d expected.

“There is one possible way out of this.”

Gamache recognized what had just happened. It was a common technique. Scare, threaten, raise the pressure and the stakes until the person was out of their mind with terror.

Then offer them a way out.

Even as he recognized it, he also recognized that it worked. He was terrified and he was desperate. And he was listening.

“How?”

“There’s something they want. Something your godfather has.”

“What Thierry Girard was looking for in Stephen’s apartment. Something to do with the neodymium mine.”

Dussault pressed his lips together.

Armand could see that Dussault hadn’t expected him to know so much. This was not working out as Dussault had planned. But neither was it going as Armand had hoped.

Both had delivered punches. And now both were reeling.

But Armand knew he was by far the more bruised. Dussault had Daniel. And therefore Dussault had him.

But Claude had said there was a chance.

“You want me to find whatever evidence Stephen’s hidden. That’s why you’ve taken Daniel. To make sure I do it.”

“Added incentive, yes. It needs to be found before tomorrow morning’s board meeting.”

“And if I do?”

“I think I can convince them to release your son, and let you all leave Paris.”

Armand stared at his feet. Then, looking up, he gave a small nod. As though he believed him. “I’ll need to see Daniel.”

Dussault brought out his iPhone.

“Non. I mean in person. There must be”—the familiar phrase Armand had used so often in hostage negotiations now stuck in his throat, so that for a moment he tasted vomit—“proof of life.”

Dussault considered the man in front of him. “Follow me.”

He turned and walked briskly away from the ghosts of the Place de la Concorde.

They walked for ten minutes, in silence, Armand Gamache following Dussault along boulevard Saint-Germain. Past the young lovers and elderly men and women arm in arm.

Though one elderly woman caught his eye. And smiled reassuringly. As though she knew. That all would be well.

Daniel’s father clung to the look in those clear and kindly eyes long after she was gone. He knew it was an illusion, a delusion, but it comforted him as he walked through the darkness.

When they turned down boulevard Raspail, Armand knew where they were going. Where Daniel had been taken.

It was both cruel and kind. Armand was both sickened and relieved.

They were holding Daniel in Stephen’s apartment. A place Daniel had visited many times. Where his son had happy memories and where he might be less afraid.