A Great Reckoning

CHAPTER 23

Myrna sat up straight in bed. Awoken by what sounded like a gunshot. Still groggy from sleep, she listened, expecting it was just a dream.

But then there was another shot. And not a single one, but rapid fire. Unmistakable. Automatic weapons fire.

And then shouting. Screaming.

Tossing the duvet aside, she ran to the door of her bedroom and opened it. But even as she did, her dream state fell away and she knew what she’d find.

Jacques Laurin sat at the laptop, his face lit only by the flickering images on the screen.

It was two in the morning and Jacques had finally followed her advice and googled “Armand Gamache.”

And the link to this video had come up.

More shouts, commands. Controlled, forceful. The voice cut through any panic, cut through the gunfire, as the Sûreté agents moved deeper and deeper into the abandoned factory. Pushing the gunmen ahead of them. Engaging them.

But the gunmen were everywhere, swarming the agents.

It looked to be an ambush, a slaughter.

But still, on the man’s urging, by voice and swift, decisive hand signals, they moved forward.

Huifen Cloutier sat up in bed.

This was the first quiet time she’d had since the death of Professor Leduc. The murder of the Duke.

That’s what he’d be remembered for, she knew. The man would be erased by the murder. Serge Leduc no longer existed. He’d never lived. All he’d done was died.

She pulled the map onto her lap, and stared at it.

Cadet Laurin’s face grew paler and paler.

He recognized this. It was their tactical exercise, in their mocked-up factory. The one where he’d been killed twice and taken hostage once. The one they never won.

But this was no exercise. It was real.

The video had been edited from the cameras the agents wore. The point of view changed from one agent to another. It was jerky, shaky. As they ran. And crouched behind concrete pillars that exploded as bullets hit.

But it was clear. As were the looks on the agents’ faces. Determined. Resolute. As they moved forward. Even as they fell.

Amelia lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

The duvet was warm around her as the cold, fresh air came in through the open window. The sheets smelled faintly of lavender. Not enough to be off-putting. Just enough to be calming.

And slowly, slowly, her mind slowed. Stopped its whirring. Stopped its worrying. She breathed in the lavender, and breathed out her anxiety.

The Duke was dead. Resting in peace, and now, finally, so could she.

The sounds were even more jarring than the images. Jacques flinched as the bullets struck all around. The walls, the floors. The agents. It was so much louder than in the exercise at the academy. His mind had gone numb, overwhelmed by the din, the chaos, the shouts and explosions, the screams of pain. His hands gripped the arms of the chair, holding tight.

All his senses were shutting down.

On the screen, an officer in tactical gear was moving forward. Then he suddenly stopped. And stood straight up. And in a grotesque parody of a ballet move, he spun gracefully. And fell.

A voice called, “Jean-Guy.”

Jacques watched as Professor Beauvoir was dragged to safety. Then the camera switched and he saw Commander Gamache, completely focused. Quickly assessing the wounded man, as gunfire sounded, pounded, around them.

Beauvoir stared up at Gamache as he tried to stanch the bleeding. Beauvoir was silent but his eyes were wide with terror. Pleading.

“I have to go,” said Gamache, putting a pressure bandage in the younger man’s hands and holding it to the wound. Gamache paused for a moment. Then leaning forward, he kissed him gently on the forehead.

Ruth Zardo stood at the threshold and stared at the boy in the bed.

He slept soundly, deeply. She listened to the rhythm of his breathing. Then she closed the door and went downstairs.

The old poet didn’t sleep much anymore. Didn’t seem to need it. What she needed was time. She could see the shore ahead. A distance away still, she thought. But visible now.

The boy had left his copy of the map in the kitchen. Ruth made a cup of chamomile and sat in her usual seat next to Rosa, who was asleep in her rag bed beside the oven.

Rosa muttered in her sleep, exhaling, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Ruth stared at the map. She’d thought maybe she’d be moved to write a poem. To purge her feelings onto paper. As the person who’d made this map had so obviously done.

But now she felt there was no need. The map said it all.

In the fine contours. The roads and rivers. The stranded cow, the elated snowman.

The three small but vibrant pines.

And the smears. Of mud. Or blood.

Yes, the map said it all.

She looked up. Heavenward, but not all the way to the heavens. Her thoughts stopped at the second floor of her home. Where a young man, who just that morning had found one of his professors murdered, lay dead to the world.

A thing like that would scar a person. Invade his waking and sleeping mind.

And yet young Nathaniel slept, apparently undisturbed by what had happened.

Jacques Laurin’s heart pounded in his chest, his temples, his throat.

The gunmen were dead. And Sûreté agents were also dead or wounded. But, incredibly, a few had escaped unhurt. Because of the calm and the tactics, on the fly, of their commander. Who’d led them through the factory and beaten the unbeatable scenario and now lay unconscious on the concrete floor. Paramedics working on him. Blood seeping from his head.

An agent, a woman, knelt beside him, holding his bloody hand.

Cadet Laurin turned off the laptop and pushed away from the desk.