All the Devils Are Here(118)

Armand raised a hand, to indicate he was all right, then struggled to his feet. As he did, he looked at Claude Dussault.

The Prefect’s brows had risen, very slightly. In surprise. In annoyance. At Loiselle’s blow? No.

Claude Dussault had expected Loiselle to find a gun.

Armand knew then that Dussault had planted the weapon in his apartment. In the box of Stephen’s things. Where he was bound to find it. And do what?

Use it? Or try to? But if so, why insist he be frisked? Why give it to him, only to have it taken away?

Had Dussault expected Armand to pull it on him in the Place de la Concorde? In a rage when told about Daniel?

If he had, he’d have been immediately gunned down by the heavily armed police who patrolled the place.

Another execution.

Was that what Dussault wanted?

But no, that didn’t make complete sense. They didn’t want him dead. They needed him alive, to find Stephen’s evidence.

So why had Claude Dussault left a gun in his apartment? And did he really expect that the head of homicide for the S?reté du Québec wouldn’t notice what it was loaded with?

“Dad, Stephen—” Daniel began, and once again Loiselle raised his rifle and Daniel cringed.

“Let him tell his father what he found at the bank,” said Dussault. “Monsieur Gamache here needs to know if he’s going to help us.”

Armand’s eyes held Daniel’s, and he said, softly, gently, “Tell me.”

It was the same voice he’d used tucking Daniel into bed: “Tell me about your day.”

And the little boy would. It would all come spilling out from a child who found wonder everywhere.

He’d hear about the odd-shaped clouds, the piles of autumn leaves, the snow forts Daniel and his friends had built and defended. The carefree battles waged and won. The first daffodils in the park, and the splashing in the fountain on a sizzling summer’s day.

“Tell me,” Armand said now.

And Daniel did.

“Stephen put in a buy order late Friday, just as the New York market closed. He was going all in on two of GHS’s holdings.”

“The numbered companies?”

“Oui.”

“What do the companies do?”

“One’s a tool and die company. But his main target is a smelter.”

Armand’s mind raced.

A smelter meant ore. Ore came from mines. Which led to GHS, which led to Patagonia.

Which led to the rare earth elements.

Which led to neodymium.

Armand’s eyes flickered to Daniel’s pocket.

Oh, God, he thought. That’s where they are.

The nickels. The ones he’d been looking for earlier, in the box. Magnetized, not glued, together.

Armand saw again Honoré in the garden, and the mighty toss. Saw Jean-Guy’s panic, thinking his son had them in his mouth. And he saw Daniel, in the background, stoop and pick up the nickels. Putting them in his jacket pocket for safekeeping. Away from the hands, and mouths, of other children.

And that’s where they still were. In the same jacket Daniel was now wearing.

If Dussault put it together and realized what they were …

If they found them on Daniel and thought he was deliberately hiding them …

Armand quickly considered his options. Bringing out a handkerchief, he looked at Daniel, then over to Dussault.

“Is it all right if I … ?”

Dussault nodded.

He approached Daniel, and as he wiped the blood from his son’s face, Daniel grabbed his arms and whispered, whimpered, his voice high and strained, “I’m not brave, Dad. I’m so afraid.”

Armand pulled him close and held him tight. “I’m here. It’s all right. I’ve got you.” He stepped back and looked his son in the eye. “And you are brave. You’re still standing. Most would be curled on the floor by now. Remember Superman.”

Daniel gave one gruff, unexpected laugh.

It was something he’d explained to his father, at great length, when he was six. That at first Superman was completely invincible. But then his creators—“One was Canadian,” Daniel had excitedly said— realized that was a mistake.

“They had to have something that could hurt him,” the earnest little boy had explained.

“And do you know why that is?” his father had asked.

Daniel had taken his time to think about it.

Two days later he’d slipped his hand into his dad’s as they walked through the park to the playground, and said, “Because you can’t be brave if you’re not afraid.”

“Oui,” his father agreed, and watched Daniel run off to play with the other kids.

“Please, Dad,” Daniel now said. “Tell me you were a commando.”

“Better.” His father leaned closer and dropped his voice further. “I taught commandos.”

Stepping back, he looked at the handkerchief. Reine-Marie had given it to him as a stocking stuffer at Christmas. It was now stained with their son’s blood.

Just as he went to put it back in his pocket, Girard reached out and bent Gamache’s hand back, almost breaking his fingers. Gamache winced and twisted, opening his hand and dropping the handkerchief.

Girard examined it. Nothing hidden in the folds. Then he tossed it back at Gamache.