All the Devils Are Here

CHAPTER 43

Armand and Reine-Marie sat on either side of Stephen’s bed, each holding one of his thin hands.

The monitors beeped. The ventilator rose and fell with soft whooshes for every breath. Lights blinked with medical messages the Gamaches didn’t understand and didn’t try to.

They understood only one thing.

It was time.

For all humane reasons, it was time.

“We found the evidence you hid in the file,” Armand told him. “Daniel’s at the board meeting right now.”

Armand paused, as though he expected a reply. Then went on.

“Nails in Calais,” he said, with a small laugh. “Very clever. Joseph Migneret. The Agence France-Presse notes by the murdered reporter. The links you and Monsieur Plessner made from the neodymium mine, to GHS’s manufacturing plants, to supermagnets and those accidents. It’s all there. And the final evidence. The hard evidence. I almost missed it. You were almost too clever for me.”

“You have it, Armand?” asked Reine-Marie.

He shook his head. “But I’m pretty sure I know where it is. You got them, Stephen. You and Monsieur Plessner did it.”

Finding the truth had cost Stephen his fortune. It had cost him his life. To save the lives of strangers. But it was done. If the seat on the board didn’t sink those giants, the hostile takeover of those two GHS subsidiaries would.

It had fallen to Armand to release that torpedo. Which, as Stephen’s guardian, he had done just before entering the hospital room.

At the start of trading on the Paris Bourse, Stephen’s buyout of the refinery and the tool and die manufacturer would go through. Giving him, or his heirs, the right to examine GHS’s books.

And then it would all become public.

Stephen had sunk everything he had into taking over those companies. Knowing in doing that, he himself would be sunk.

The doctor hovered behind Reine-Marie and caught Armand’s eye.

“Monsieur Gamache?”

“Just another minute, please,” said Armand. “We’re waiting for someone. Oh, here she is.”

Jean-Guy entered, holding the baby.

“This is your great-granddaughter,” said Armand.

Jean-Guy stood beside Armand. His mentor. In many ways, his own father. And wondered if he’d be able to do what Armand was about to.

Armand stood up, still holding Stephen’s hand, and said, “It’s time. Let him go.”

Then he sat back down, his legs weak.

If this was the right thing to do, why did it feel so wrong?

But no, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt wretched. Horrific. A nightmare.

But sometimes “right” felt like that.

When the ventilator was removed, and all the IVs and tubing and equipment taken away, the room grew very quiet.

What remained was Stephen.

Jean-Guy bent down and placed the child in the crook of Stephen’s arm.

“Her name’s Idola,” Armand whispered. “Named after Idola Saint-Jean, who fought for equal rights. She never gave up. She never gave in.”

“Her name means ‘inner truth,’” said Jean-Guy.

He looked into the irregular eyes and the flat facial features of their daughter with Down syndrome.

They’d known since early in the pregnancy. And had made a choice. For life. Just as Armand had just made a choice. To end a life.

There was, at that moment across Paris, a chorus of pings as, one after the other, board members received urgent messages.

Daniel looked at Claude Dussault, who nodded.

It was done.

The buy order Daniel had discovered at the bank had gone through.

The pings were the sound of a torpedo rapidly approaching the great conglomerate.

Armand brought out Stephen’s favorite book of poetry and began reading.

In order to save their skins, if not their souls, the board members voted to kill GHS Engineering themselves.

They had to be seen to be on the side of right. The side of the angels.

It would have to be made clear, to the regulators, to the public, that as soon as they found out what GHS Engineering had been doing—the murders, the cover-up, the thousands of people killed in accidents that could have been prevented—the board members had themselves acted swiftly and decisively.

They voted to contact the authorities and regulators.

To shut down the nuclear power plants.

To ground affected aircraft and stop affected trains.

To inspect bridges and elevators.

While the CEO, Eugénie Roquebrune, was led away, they voted to set up a genuine compensation fund for the victims and their families.

And to make Carole Gossette the acting head of GHS, to oversee its demise.

“That in the midst of your nightmare,” Armand read, softly. “The final one, a kind lion will come with bandages in her mouth—”

Outside the boardroom, Xavier Loiselle approached Daniel.

“That was incredibly brave of you, to come out of hiding for your father.”

“Brave? I was scared shitless.”

“But you did it.”

“I can’t believe my father let me think he was dead.”

“He wasn’t playing dead. Being hit at close range, even by cartridges, is no joke. He was knocked out. I know the difference between someone pretending and someone who’s actually out cold. And just so you know, he couldn’t have known Girard had picked up his gun. When he jumped in to save you, he had no idea the bullets were the fake ones. He expected to die.”

Loiselle shifted his gaze to the Prefect, supervising the arrests, before returning to Daniel. “Don’t shy away from the truth. It’s an amazing thing, to be willing to die for each other.”

Claude Dussault came over and, patting Loiselle on his arm, said, “Come see me later in the week. We can discuss your future.”

“Oui, patron.”

“—And lick you clean of fever,” said Armand. No longer reading. He’d memorized the poem, by their neighbor Ruth, long ago. One of his favorites, too.

Stephen was still and silent.

Armand leaned close to his godfather, reciting so softly no one else heard, “And pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck, and caress you into darkness and paradise.”

He kissed him on the forehead and whispered, “Thank you. Safe travels, dear man. I love you.”

“Excusez-moi,” said the doctor and, bending over Stephen, he used his stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat.

Then he straightened up.