The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (18 page)

“Of what?”

“That what Gerald Bull said could be done really could. And that he’d actually do it. He was assassinated to stop him, there’s little doubt of that. I think the CSIS files will prove it. But they didn’t realize it was too late. The die was cast. The weapon built.”

“
Oui
,” said Beauvoir. “But who did he build it for and why did he build it here?”

*   *   *

“He’s a crackpot,” said Mary Fraser, looking across the bistro at the elderly man’s back. “Has all sorts of strange ideas about Gerald Bull. And about us. He’s got a sort of persecution complex. Thinks we’re keeping information from him.”

“Well, we are,” said Delorme.

“Yes, but it isn’t personal,” said Mary Fraser. “It’s all covered under the Security of Information Act. We can’t release it, even if we want to. Which reminds me, who have you told about the Supergun besides him?”

“It’s in our official report on the crime,” said Lacoste. “But that’s confidential. We haven’t made any announcement.”

“Good. Please don’t until we get a handle on the thing.”

“Yes, we need to put this on lockdown,” said Delorme, obviously enjoying using that phrase perhaps for the first time in his career.

“I can understand keeping the Supergun confidential for now, but why has the information on Gerald Bull been kept a secret?” asked Isabelle Lacoste, taking a forkful of her warm duck salad. “The man’s long dead.”

“I don’t really know,” said Mary Fraser. It seemed she’d never asked herself that question. Her job, after all, was to analyze the files, not question the content.

“You’ve obviously read the files,” Lacoste pressed. “You’re probably more familiar with Gerald Bull than anyone else in the world. What do those files say?”

“They say he was a common arms dealer, probably a sociopath,” said Mary Fraser. She was talking about Gerald Bull, but continued to look at Rosenblatt. “He didn’t care who he sold his weapons to, or how they’d be used.”

“All Dr. Bull wanted was boatloads of money and the chance to prove his theories right,” said Delorme. “And if, in the process, hundreds of thousands of people died, it wasn’t his concern.”

“If he’d succeeded, God knows what would’ve happened in the region,” said Mary Fraser, turning back to look at Lacoste.

“Then his client really was Saddam?” asked Lacoste.

“The field agents believed it,” said Mary Fraser.

“But even if they were wrong and he sold to the Israelis or the Saudis, it would still be a goddamn mess,” said Delorme.

“Armageddon,” said Mary Fraser. Somehow she managed to say it without making it sound ridiculous, even in this most peaceful of places.

“How did you know about the etching on the gun?” Lacoste asked. “The Whore of Babylon.”

Sean Delorme leaned across the table with enthusiasm. “It’s all part of the legend. That’s what’s so amazing. Our job is to collect information and file it.”

“We’d come across stories about the etching in some field agent reports from the late eighties,” said Mary Fraser. “The agents were trying to keep track of Dr. Bull. While they were pretty sure his client was Saddam Hussein, they couldn’t pin it down.”

“There were all sorts of wild rumors,” said Delorme. “Makes for entertaining reading but not useful intelligence.”

“One rumor that kept coming up was that Bull had commissioned a drawing for the side of the Supergun,” said Fraser. “The Whore of Babylon. From the Book of Revelation.”

“Satan. Armageddon,” said Delorme.

“Pure Bull,” said Mary Fraser, shaking her head.

“Did you mean to say that?” Delorme turned to her. “Very clever.”

Lacoste, watching these two, thought the play on Dr. Bull’s name was more obvious than clever, but the CSIS agents seemed amused.

“What I meant was that Dr. Bull was famous for these grand gestures,” said Mary Fraser. “But they were always empty. The more extravagant the claim, the emptier the bubble.”

“And a Supergun etched with the Whore of Babylon was pure Bull,” said Delorme, sneaking a smile, still amused by the obvious, and now worn, joke.

“No one believed it?” asked Isabelle Lacoste. “It was a step too far. Just like the boy who was killed. Laurent Lepage. No one believed him either.”

“Obviously someone believed it,” said Mary Fraser. “They were both killed.”

*   *   *

Isabelle Lacoste walked over to Gabri’s B and B with the two CSIS agents, to make arrangements for them to stay there.

It would be crowded, but it would also be interesting. Throw the agents and the academic together, and see what happened.

Like Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme, she found it odd that Professor Rosenblatt should be so obsessed with a long-dead arms dealer. But she also found it odd that Mary Fraser claimed not to know the difference between Arabic and Hebrew, written on the etching.

And she found it even odder that Sean Delorme had made his way straight to Three Pines, when getting lost was almost a prerequisite for finding the place.

The Supergun was definitely strange, but it wasn’t the only strange thing going on.

CHAPTER 15

“You’re back,” said Reine-Marie.

She turned from the computer to look at Armand and Henri, who were standing at the door into the study.

“
Oui
,” said Armand. “What’re you up to?”

“Research,” she said, getting up to greet them. “How bad is the play?”

He tossed it onto the table by the door. “As a play? It’s not bad at all. In fact, Antoinette was right. It’s brilliant.”

He looked like he’d just eaten something foul.

“I didn’t finish it, but I will later. Just needed a break. Drink?”

“Please,” she said, returning to the computer. He heard the printer working and glanced in on his way to the cleaning closet, where they hid their best brands from Ruth.

“Lysol or Mr. Clean?” he called.

“Actually, a Spic and Span sounds good. But a light one.”

He handed her a gin and tonic, with extra tonic and a wedge of lemon, and noticed she had the McGill site up and was reading.

Armand slipped a CD into the stereo and the unmistakable voice of Neil Young came out. Then he took his Scotch and a book over to an armchair.

He read the familiar first lines of the book and felt the calm come over him, like a comforter. He lost himself, even momentarily, in the familiar world of Scout and Jem and Boo Radley.

Reine-Marie found him half an hour later sitting by the window, his finger in the book, staring into their garden and listening to the music. Henri by his side.

“Happy?” she asked.

“Peaceful,” he said. “Find any interesting courses?”

“Pardon?”

He waved to the sheaf of printouts in her hand.

“You were looking on the McGill site. Are you also going to check out the Université de Montréal? They have some terrific courses. Will you audit classes, or go for a degree?”

“I wasn’t looking up courses, Armand. I was looking up Gerald Bull. For a man whose work was supposedly secret, there’s a surprising amount out there about him if you know the keywords, like Project Babylon. The public search engines like Google have a fair amount, all saying much the same thing. But it gets really interesting once you go into the private records.”

“Private?” he asked, sitting up.

“I’m an archivist,” she reminded him. “Like a priest, we never really retire.” She held up the sheaf of papers. “And I have the codes to the private McGill archives.”

“Bless you,” said Armand, reaching for the printouts and his glasses. “What did you find?”

“Well, Gerald Bull was considered a bit of a failure in both his own academic record and his work. He seems to have been a great big pain in the
derrière
. According to his personnel file at McGill, he sort of muddled along, alienating everyone who came into contact with him. He was a big personality, with big and what were considered crazy ideas. No one wanted to work with him.”

“Why didn’t they get rid of him?”

“They did eventually, though it’s couched in all sorts of diplomatic, nonactionable terms. But they kept him on for a long time in the hopes that one of his outlandish ideas might work.”

“Which, of course, it did,” said Armand. He studied the papers, then looked up at her. “But by then he was long gone. When was he born?”

Reine-Marie scanned her notes. “March 9, 1928.”

Gamache did a quick calculation. “That would put him well into his eighties now. Almost ninety.”

Reine-Marie looked at him, puzzled. “But he’s dead. You know that. Dr. Bull was killed in 1990, at the age of”—she worked it out—“sixty-two.”

“Yes,” said Armand, leaning back in his chair.

“What’re you thinking?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s ridiculous.”

“You’re wondering if Gerald Bull is still alive?” she asked, astonished.

“I’ve spent too many years being suspicious,” he said with a smile. “Forget I said anything.” He held up his weak Scotch. “Blame it on the Lysol.”

“Armand, there is something odd in the files.”

She took a couple of the sheets from his hands and lowered her glasses from the top of her head where they rested, to her eyes. Words and sometimes whole lines had been blacked out, redacted, on the pages. Even the secret files continued to hold some secrets.

“I’m used to seeing this,” she said. “Notes and papers are sent to the archives, but are edited by security first. It’s often the personal diaries of politicians or scientists, so I wasn’t particularly surprised.”

“No,” said Armand. “Neither am I. Dr. Bull was doing research that obviously had weapons applications.”

“Right. What surprised me is this.”

Reine-Marie sifted through the pages. She’d put a pen behind her ear and her glasses had now slipped down her nose. She looked like Katharine Hepburn in
Desk Set
. All smart and efficient and completely unaware of how beautiful she was. Armand could watch her all day long.

Reine-Marie found what she was looking for, and handed him one of the sheets. It had been heavily blacked out.

“It’s part of an internal report on Dr. Bull’s work. It was written after his murder. Look at that.”

She pointed to one line. He put on his glasses and read it, then reread it, his brows drawing together. He sat up straight in the chair.

The censor had missed one reference to the Supergun. Not a huge omission, since Dr. Bull’s effort to create one was a kind of open secret.

“Do you think it’s a typo?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

He looked back down at the report. At the word. That should have been blacked out.

“Superguns.” Plural.

Jesus, he thought. Could there be more than one of them?

Reine-Marie pushed her glasses back up her nose and took the pen from behind her ear.

Katharine Hepburn was gone. Spencer Tracy was gone. This was no comedy. Armand and Reine-Marie looked at each other. Then Armand got up, and started pacing. Not frantically. He took long, measured, almost graceful steps, up and down the living room.

“It might mean nothing,” he said. “It might be just a typo, as you said. Almost certainly is. Let’s stick to what we know to be true.”

“Well, according to the files, we know Dr. Bull worked at McGill, doing research into long-range artillery. We know he moved to Brussels in the early eighties and was killed there on March 20, 1990.”

“Do the reports you found say who was responsible?”

“The main theory is Mossad. Gerald Bull was apparently also working on the Scud missile program for the Iraqis. But the main thrust of his work was to build a cannon for Saddam that could shoot a missile into low orbit.”

“And from there travel just about anywhere,” said Armand.

“Project Babylon,” said Reine-Marie. “The Supergun was for the Iraqis after all.”

“Gun or guns,” said Armand. “He was killed on March 20, 1990, you say?”

“Yes. Why?”

Armand took a few more agitated paces, then stopped and shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. I know it doesn’t.”

“What doesn’t?”

“John Fleming’s first murder was in the summer of 1990.”

There was a pause as Reine-Marie absorbed that, and tried to compose herself. “Are you suggesting there’s a link? How could there be?”

Armand sat down, his knees touching hers. “Gerald Bull built Project Babylon, and etched onto it not just the Whore of Babylon but lines from a psalm, ‘
By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept
.’”

He looked across their living room to the front door, where the goddamned play lay.

“John Fleming writes a play quoting the same line, or near enough.
She Sat Down and Wept.”

“It’s a famous line, Armand.” She tried to sound supportive without sounding patronizing. She could see the intensity in his eyes. “There’ve been lots of literary references to it, even music. Didn’t Don McLean write a song with that lyric?”

Then she saw what he was thinking and felt her concern spike.

“You’re wondering if John Fleming could be Gerald Bull? But surely that couldn’t be hidden.”

He picked up the blacked-out sheets. “You can hide anything, depending on who ‘you’ are.”

Reine-Marie leaned forward and took both his hands in hers. She spoke slowly, quietly. Holding his gaze. “You’ve just been reading the play. It’s brought up all sorts of memories of John Fleming. Do you think it’s possible that your grief for Laurent has somehow gotten all mixed up with the trauma of the Fleming trial? I don’t know what happened there, and maybe one day you’ll tell me, but this isn’t making sense, Armand.” She paused to let her words sink in, penetrate, and perhaps even overpower this delusion. “The two aren’t connected, except by a very common quote from the Bible. Do you see that? Fleming has gotten under your skin, or up your nose,” she smiled, and saw a small upturn at the corners of his mouth, “but however he got there, he’s in your head and you have to get him out. He doesn’t belong there, and he doesn’t belong in the murder of Laurent. It’s just muddying things.”

Armand got up and stood by the fireplace, his back to her, looking at the flames. Then he turned around.