All the Devils Are Here(117)

But it was one more violation for Armand. His own safe place defiled beyond redemption.

When they arrived, Madame Faubourg came out to greet them.

“It’s wonderful to see Daniel. I hope you don’t mind my letting him and his friends into Monsieur Horowitz’s apartment. He did have the JSPS card.” She leaned closer to Armand. “Not that he needed it. I’d have let him in anyway.”

Light spilled from the open door to her apartment, and with it the scent of ginger and molasses.

“Any more news about Monsieur Horowitz?”

“I’m afraid not. I won’t be staying long, but I think Daniel and his friends might stay the night. Sort through things. Best not to disturb them.”

“Of course.”

She nodded to Dussault and wiped her hands on her apron as she watched them walk through the courtyard.

In the elevator, Gamache turned to Dussault. “How can you be part of this? What happened?”

“Don’t be so fucking sanctimonious, Armand. Have you looked around? What’s the difference between this and the tobacco companies? The pharmaceuticals that continue to sell drugs they know are killing people? Airlines that fly planes they know are dangerous, elevators that plunge to the ground? How about nuclear power stations coming online? Engineers who continue to use faulty and inferior materials? The governments that drop regulations in favor of profit? They’re killing thousands, hundreds of thousands. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t tell me you haven’t knowingly endangered innocent lives, justifying it as for the greater good. Where’s the line?”

“That’s your justification? I’ll tell you where the line is. It’s buried under that pile of corpses you helped make.”

The elevator jerked to a stop, and Dussault yanked the metal accordion door open.

“You can’t win. Since you refused to leave, what you’re fighting for now is how badly you’re going to lose. How much you’re going to lose. If they think you know what Horowitz has and aren’t telling them, they’ll kill Daniel now. In front of you. And then they’ll go to the archives, hunt down everyone there, and kill them. And then they’ll go to the George V—”

“Enough!”

“—and they’ll kill everyone there. One by one. Until you hand it over.”

“You’d do that?” demanded Armand, horrified. “You’d let them do that?”

“I can’t stop it even if I wanted to. Fuck, Armand, they’re the truck and you’re the bug. You and your family are about a millimeter away from that windshield now.”

“But I don’t know what Stephen found. Maybe nothing.” Armand felt himself sliding into panic. “Maybe he just had suspicions and no hard evidence. He might’ve hoped it would be enough to frighten the board. He might’ve thought coming from him, that would be enough.” He stared at Claude Dussault. Desperate now. “Maybe there’s nothing to find.”

“You’d better pray there is, and that you find it.”

Dussault knocked, then opened the door to Stephen’s apartment.

Four men stood up and turned to them. One of them, Gamache saw with near despair, was Xavier Loiselle.

He was holding an assault rifle. On Daniel.





CHAPTER 37




Armand pushed past Dussault.

Xavier Loiselle swung his weapon toward him, but Dussault simply gestured and Loiselle stepped back.

Armand grabbed Daniel and held him close, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He could feel Daniel trembling as he clutched his father. Then Armand pulled away and, holding Daniel at arm’s length, he examined the bruise and blood on his son’s face.

Then he turned to the three large men.

“Who did this?”

“I did,” came a voice from the dining room. And Thierry Girard appeared. “He wouldn’t tell us what he found at the bank. But then”—Girard smiled—“he did.”

“Dad, I’m sorry.”

“They already knew,” said Armand, his voice a snarl. He faced Girard. “You already knew what he found, didn’t you? But you beat him anyway, you sadistic shit.”

Gamache took a step toward him, then stopped, frozen in place by a familiar sound. The soft, metallic click of a safety coming off.

He turned to his son.

Daniel’s eyes were wide with terror as the gun pressed against his temple.

“You’re right,” said Girard, his voice conversational, almost chatty. “We did know. But you better than most know the advantage of having a cooperative witness. Sometimes people just have to see the full advantage of being helpful. And the disadvantage of not.”

Gamache glared at him. “I’ll kill you.”

“Ah, you just slipped from your favorite spot on the higher ground, Chief Inspector,” said Girard. “What does it feel like to be in the dung with the rest of us?”

“You’d better frisk him,” said Dussault. “Make sure he’s unarmed.”

Gamache glared at Loiselle as he frisked him.

“Nothing.” Then he gave Gamache a quick jab in the solar plexus with the butt of his machine gun, dropping him to his knees.

“Dad?”