How the Light Gets In

THIRTY-THREE

Agent Nichol crawled under the desk, her hands and knees on the dusty floor. Picking up the cable, she guided it to the metal box.

“Ready?”

Up above, Thérèse Brunel looked at Armand Gamache. Armand Gamache looked at Jérôme Brunel. And Dr. Brunel did not hesitate.

“Ready,” he said.

“Are you sure this time?” came the petulant voice. “Maybe you want to think about it over a nice hot chocolate.”

“Just do it, for chrissake,” snapped Jérôme.

And she did. There was a click, then her head appeared from beneath the desk. “Done.”

She crawled out and took her seat beside Dr. Brunel. In front of them was equipment Jane Neal, the last teacher to sit at that desk, could not have imagined. Monitors, terminals, keyboards.

Once again Gamache gave Jérôme the access code, and he typed, and typed until there was just one more key to hit.

“There’s no going back after this, Armand.”

“I know. Do it.”

And Jérôme Brunel did. He hit enter.

And … nothing happened.

“This’s an old setup,” said Nichol, a little nervously. “It might take a moment.”

“I thought you said it would be ultra fast,” said Jérôme, a touch of panic creeping around the edges of his words. “It needs to be fast.”

“It will be.” Nichol was rapidly hitting keys on her terminal. Like clog dancing on the computer.

“It’s not working,” said Jérôme.

“Fuck,” said Nichol, pushing herself away from the desk. “Piece of crap.”

“You brought it,” said Jérôme.

“Yeah, and you refused to test it last night.”

“Stop,” said Gamache, holding up his hand. “Just think. Why isn’t it working?”

Ducking under the desk again, Nichol removed and reattached the satellite cable.

“Anything?” she called.

“Nothing,” Jérôme replied, and Nichol returned to her chair. They both stared at their screens.

“What could be the problem?” Gamache repeated.

“Tabarnac,” said Nichol, “it could be anything. This isn’t a potato peeler, you know.”

“Calm down and walk me through this.”

“All right.” She tossed her pen onto the desk. “It could be a bad connection. Some fault in the cable. A squirrel could’ve chewed through a wire—”

“The likely reasons,” said Gamache. He turned to Jérôme. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s probably the satellite dish. Everything else is working fine. If you want to play FreeCell, knock yourself out. The problem only occurs when we try to connect.”

Gamache nodded. “Do we need a new dish?”

He hoped, prayed, the answer was …

“No. I don’t think so,” said Jérôme. “I think it has snow on it.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Thérèse.

“He might be right,” Nichol conceded. “A blizzard could pack snow into the dish and screw up the reception.”

“But the snow we had yesterday wasn’t a blizzard,” said the Chief.

“True,” said Jérôme. “But there was a lot of it, and if Gilles tilted the dish almost straight up, it would be a perfect bowl, to catch what fell.”

Gamache shook his head. It would be poetic, that state-of-the-art technology could be paralyzed by snowflakes, if it wasn’t so serious.

“Call Gilles,” he said to Thérèse. “Have him meet me at the dish.”

He threw on his outdoor gear, grabbed a flashlight, and headed into the darkness.

It was more difficult to find the path through the woods than he’d expected—it was dark and the trail had all but filled in with snow. He pointed his flashlight here and there, hoping he was at the right spot. Eventually he found what were now simply soft contours in an otherwise flat blanket of snow. The trail. He hoped. He plunged in.

Yet again he felt snow tumble down his boots and begin to soak his socks. He shoved his legs forward through the deep snow, the light he carried bouncing off trees and lumps that would be bushes in the spring.

He finally reached the sturdy old white pine, with the wooden rungs nailed into her trunk. He caught his breath, but only for a moment. Each minute counted now.

Being thieves in the night depended on the night. And it was slipping away. In just a few hours people would wake up. Go in to work. Sit at monitors. Turn them on. There’d be more eyes to see what they were doing.

The Chief looked up. The platform seemed to twirl away from him, lifting higher and higher into the tree. He looked down at the snow and steadied himself against the rough bark.

Turning the flashlight off, he stuck it in his pocket, and with one last deep breath he grabbed the first rung. Up, up he climbed. Quickly. Trying to outrun his thoughts. Faster, faster, before he lost his nerve and the fear he’d exhaled found him again in the cold, dark night.

He’d climbed this tree once before, a few years earlier. It had horrified him even then, and that had been on a sunny autumn day. Never would he have dreamed he’d have to go back up those rickety rungs, when they were covered in ice and snow. At night.

Grip, pull up, step up. Grab the next rung. Pull himself up.

But the fear had found him and was clawing at his back. At his brain.

Breathe, breathe, he commanded himself. And he gasped in a deep breath.

He didn’t dare stop. He didn’t dare look up. But finally he knew he had to. Surely he was almost there. He paused for a moment and tilted his head back.

The wooden platform was still a half dozen rungs away. He almost sobbed. He could feel himself growing light-headed, and the blood draining from his feet and hands.

“Keep going, keep going,” he whispered into the rough bark.

The sound of his own voice comforted him, and he reached for the next wooden slat, barely believing he was doing it. He began to hum to himself, the last song he’d heard. “The Huron Carol.”

He began to sing it, softly.

“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he exhaled into the tree, “when all the birds had fled.”

The carol was more spoken than sung, but it calmed his frantic mind just enough.

“That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead.”

His hand banged against the old wooden platform, and without hesitation he scrambled through the hole and lay flat on his stomach, his cheek buried in the snow, his right arm around the tree trunk. His heavy breath propelled snowflakes away, in a tiny blizzard. He slowed his breathing, afraid of hyperventilating, then crept to his knees and crouched low as though something just over the edge might reach up and yank him over.

But Gamache knew the enemy wasn’t just over the edge. It was on the platform with him.

Pulling the flashlight from his pocket, he turned it on. The dish was locked on a small tripod, which Gilles had screwed to the railing of the hunting blind.

It was pointing up.

“Oh, Christ,” said Gamache, and briefly wondered how bad Francoeur’s plan could really be. Maybe they didn’t have to stop it. Maybe they could go back to bed and pull the covers up.

“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he mumbled as he moved forward, on his knees. The platform felt like it was tilting and Gamache felt himself pitching forward, but he shut his eyes, and steadied himself.

“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he repeated. Get the snow off the dish, and get down.

“Armand.”

It was Thérèse, standing at the foot of the tree.

“Oui,” he called down, and turned the flashlight in that direction.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said, and scrambled as far from the edge as possible, his boots scraping at the snow. His back banged against the tree and he grabbed at it. Not for fear he’d fall, but the fear that had been clawing at him as he climbed had finally wrapped itself around him. And was dragging him to the edge.

Gamache was afraid he’d throw himself over.

He pressed his back harder against the trunk.

“I called Gilles, but he can’t be here for half an hour.” Her voice came to him out of the darkness.

The Chief cursed himself. He should have asked Gilles to stay with them, in case this very thing happened. Gilles had offered the night before and he’d told him to go home. And now the man was half an hour away, when every moment counted.

Every moment counted.

The words cut through the shriek in his head. Cut through the fear, cut through the comforting carol.

Every moment counts.

Letting go of the tree, he jammed the flashlight into the snow, pointed at the satellite dish, and moved forward on his hands and knees, as fast as he could.

At the wooden railing, he stood up and looked into the satellite dish. It was filled with snow. He dropped his gloves to the platform and carefully, rapidly, scooped the snow out of it. Trying not to knock it off its beam. Trying not to dislodge the receptor at the very center of the dish.

Finally, it was done and he lunged away from the edge, and back to the tree, putting his arms around it, grateful there was no one to see him doing it. But honestly, at that stage Chief Inspector Gamache didn’t care if the image went viral. He wasn’t going to let go of that tree.

“Thérèse,” he called, and heard the fear in his voice.

“Here. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“The snow’s off the dish.”

“Agent Nichol’s on the road,” said Thérèse. “When Jérôme connects she’ll turn her flashlight on and off.”

Gamache, still gripping the tree, turned his head and stared across the treetops toward the road. All he saw was darkness.

“Twas in the moon of wintertime,” he whispered to himself. “When all the birds had fled.”

Please, Lord, please.

“Twas in the moon of winter—”

And then he saw it.

A light. Then the darkness. Then a light.

They were connected. It had begun.

“Is it working?” Thérèse asked as soon as they opened the door of the old schoolhouse.

“Perfectly,” said Jérôme, his voice almost giddy. He typed in a few instructions and images popped up and disappeared, and new ones came on. “Better than I’d imagined.”

Gamache looked at his watch. One twenty.

The countdown had begun.

“Holy shit,” said Nichol, her eyes round and bright. “It works.”

Chief Inspector Gamache tried to ignore the surprise in her voice.

“What now?” Thérèse asked.

“We’re in the national archives,” Jérôme reported. “Agent Nichol and I talked about it and decided to split up. Double our chances of finding something.”

“I’m going in through a terminal in a school library in Baie-des-Chaleurs,” said Nichol. On seeing the surprise in their faces, she lowered her eyes and mumbled, “I’ve done this before. Best way to snoop.”

While Jérôme and Thérèse seemed surprised, Gamache was not. Agent Nichol was born to the shadows. To the margins. She was a natural snooper.

“And I’m going in through the Sûreté evidence room in Schefferville,” said Jérôme.

“The Sûreté?” asked Thérèse, looking over his shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“No,” he admitted. “But our only advantage is to be bold. If they trace us back to some Sûreté outpost, it might just confuse them long enough for us to disappear.”

“You think so?” asked Gamache.

“It confused you.”

Gamache smiled. “True.”

Thérèse also smiled. “Off you go then, and don’t forget to play dirty.”

Thérèse and Gamache had brought Hudson’s Bay blankets from Emilie’s home, and the two made themselves useful by putting them up at the windows. It would still be obvious that someone was in the schoolhouse, but it would not be obvious what they were doing.

Gilles arrived and brought in more firewood. He fed chopped logs into the stove, which began pouring out good heat.

For the next couple of hours, Jérôme and Nichol worked almost in silence. Every now and then they’d exchange words and phrases like 418s. Firewalls. Symmetric keys.

But for the most part they worked quietly, the only sounds in the schoolhouse the familiar tapping of keys, and the muttering of the woodstove.

Gamache, Gilles, and Henri had returned to Emilie’s home and brought back bacon and eggs, bread and coffee. They cooked on the woodstove, filling the room with the aroma of bacon, wood smoke and coffee.

But so great was Jérôme’s concentration that he didn’t seem to notice. He and Nichol talked about packets and encryption. Ports and layers.

When breakfast was put beside them the two barely looked up. Both were immersed in their own world of NIPS and countermeasures.

Gamache poured himself a coffee and leaned against the old map by the window, watching. Resisting the temptation to hover.

It reminded him a little of the rooms of his tutors at Cambridge. Papers piled high. Notepads, scribbled thoughts, mugs of cold tea and half-eaten crumpets. A stove for heat, and the scent of drying wool.

Gilles sat in what they’d begun to call his chair, at the door of the schoolhouse. He ate his breakfast and, when he was finished, poured himself another mug of coffee and tipped his chair back against the door. He was their deadbolt.

Gamache looked at his watch. It was twenty-five past four. He felt like pacing, but knew that would be annoying. He was dying to ask how it was going, but knew that would simply break their concentration. Instead, he called Henri and put on his coat, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets. In his panic, he’d left his gloves on the platform with the satellite dish and he sure as hell wasn’t going back for them.

Thérèse and Gilles joined them, and they went for a stroll.

“It’s going well,” said Thérèse.

“Yes,” said Gamache. It was cold, and clear, and crisp, and dark. And quiet.

“Like thieves in the night, eh?” he said to Gilles.

The woodsman laughed. “I hope I didn’t insult you with that.”

“Far from it,” said Thérèse. “It’s a natural career progression. Sorbonne, chief curator at the Musée des beaux-arts, Superintendent of the Sûreté, and finally, the pinnacle. A thief in the night.” She turned to Gamache. “And all thanks to you.”

“You’re welcome, madame.” Gamache bowed solemnly.

They sat on a bench and looked across to the schoolhouse, with its light muffled by the blankets. The Chief wondered if the quiet woodsman beside him knew what would happen if they failed. And what would happen if they succeeded.

In either case, all hell was about to break loose. And come here.

But at this moment there was peace and quiet.

They walked back to the schoolhouse, Henri leaping and catching the snowballs, only to have them disappear in his mouth. But he never stopped trying, never gave up.

An hour later Jérôme and Nichol tripped their first alarm.