The Nature of the Beast

CHAPTER 14

“I see you’re back. Do you mind if I join you?”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir sat down across from Professor Rosenblatt at the bistro. The elderly scientist smiled, clearly welcoming the company.

“I just unpacked my things at the B and B and thought I’d come over for lunch,” said Professor Rosenblatt.

“You’re making notes,” said Jean-Guy, looking at the open notebook. “On the gun?”

“Yes. And trying to remember all I can about Gerald Bull. Fascinating character.”

“I see you also stopped by the bookstore.”

A slim volume sat on the table between them.

“I did. Wonderful place. I can’t resist a bookstore, especially a secondhand one. I found this.”

He gestured to the copy of I’m FINE.

“I was actually going to buy something else, but some old woman stood by the cash register and said she wanted every book I chose. This was the only book she let me buy. Fortunately I’m a fan.”

Beauvoir smirked. “You like the poet who wrote I’m FINE?”

“I do. I think she’s a genius. Who hurt you once/so far beyond repair/that you would greet each overture/with curling lip.” Rosenblatt shook his head and tapped the book. “Brilliant.”

“Ruth Zardo,” said Beauvoir.

“Ahhh, I see you know her too.”

“Actually I was introducing you. Professor Michael Rosenblatt, may I present Ruth Zardo and her duck, Rosa.”

The elderly scientist looked up, startled, into the pinched face of the old woman who’d essentially bullied him into buying her book.

He struggled to his feet.

“Madame Zardo,” he said, and practically bowed. “This is an honor.”

“Of course it is,” said Ruth. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Rosa, nestled against Ruth, stared beady-eyed at Professor Rosenblatt.

“I, well, I was just—”

“We asked him here to help,” said Beauvoir.

“With what?”

“With what we found in the woods, of course.”

“And what was that?” she demanded.

“It’s a—” Rosenblatt began, before Jean-Guy cut him off.

Ruth glared at the professor. “Have we met?”

“I don’t think so. I’d have remembered,” he said.

“Well,” said Jean-Guy, looking at the empty chair at their table, then at Ruth. “Good-bye.”

Ruth gave him the finger, then limped away to join Clara at a table by the fireplace.

“Well,” said the professor, regaining his seat. “That was unexpected. Is that her daughter?”

“The duck?”

“No, the woman she’s sitting with.”

The very idea of Ruth giving birth shocked Beauvoir. He was still struggling with the thought that she’d been born. He imagined her as a tiny, wizened, gray-haired child. With a duckling.

“No, that’s Clara Morrow.”

“The artist?”

“Yes.”

“I saw her show at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.” His eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, did Madame Morrow do a portrait of Ruth Zardo? The old and frail Madonna? The one who looks so loathsome?”

“That’s the one.”

Professor Rosenblatt glanced at the other patrons. At the beamed and cheerful bistro, at the comfortable armchairs. He looked toward the bookstore, then, in the other direction, the boulangerie that carried moist madeleines that tasted like childhood.

Then he looked out the window to the old, solid homes, and the three tall pines like guardians on the green. Then back to Ruth Zardo sharing a table and a meal with Clara Morrow.

“What is this place?” he asked, almost beneath his breath. “Why did Gerald Bull choose to come here, of all places?”

“That’s one of the questions I came to ask you, Professor,” said Beauvoir.

“Salut, Jean-Guy,” said Olivier, standing at the table with his notepad and pencil. “Bonjour,” he said to the professor.

“Olivier, this is Professor Rosenblatt. He’s helping us with our investigation.”

“Oh, really?”

“I believe I spoke to your partner, Gabri,” said Rosenblatt. “I’ve arranged for a room at the B and B.”

“Wonderful. Then we’ll be seeing more of you.”

Olivier waited, clearly hoping for more information. But what he got was their lunch orders.

Jean-Guy, after a mighty struggle with himself, asked for the grilled scallop and warm pear salad. He’d promised Annie to eat more sensibly.

“Maybe Gerald Bull coming here is karmic,” said Rosenblatt, after Olivier left. “Yin and yang. Two halves of a whole?” he offered when he saw his companion’s scowl.

“Oh, I know what it means, but you don’t believe in that sort of thing, do you?”

“You think because I’m a scientist I don’t have a faith?” Rosenblatt asked. “You’d be surprised how many physicists believe in God.”

“Do you?”

“I believe for every action there’s an equal reaction. What else is yin and yang? Heaven and hell. A peaceful creative village, and a dreadful killing machine close by.”

“Where else would the devil go, but to paradise?” asked Beauvoir.

“Where else would God go, but to hell,” said Rosenblatt.

The elderly man raised his hands, blotched with age, and lifted first one then the other.

A balance.

“Merci, patron,” said Jean-Guy, leaning back to make room for Olivier to put down his plate.

The scallops were large and succulent and grilled golden brown. They lay on a bed of grains and fresh herbs and roasted pine nuts and goat cheese next to a warm grilled apple. He was about to ask about the pear but was distracted by the bacon club sandwich with thin, seasoned fries put before the professor.

He is smart, thought Beauvoir.

“Can I tempt you?” Rosenblatt asked, pushing his plate a millimeter closer to Jean-Guy.

“Non, merci,” said Jean-Guy, taking a fry.

The professor smiled, but then it faded.

“Who’re they?”

Beauvoir followed Rosenblatt’s scowl and saw Isabelle Lacoste standing in the doorway of the bistro with Sean Delorme and Mary Fraser.

Across the room, Mary Fraser turned to Lacoste. “Is that him?”

“Professor Rosenblatt, oui,” said Lacoste. “Would you like an introduction?”

Isabelle pretended not to hear the urgent whispers of Non, merci behind her as she wove between the tables.

“They’re coming this way,” said Rosenblatt in an urgent whisper. Beauvoir half expected him to bark, “Quick, hide.”

“There you are,” said Isabelle, as though seeing Beauvoir was a surprise and not part of the plan. “We were just coming in for a late lunch too. I don’t believe you’ve met. Professor Michael Rosenblatt, may I present Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme. They’ve just arrived from Ottawa. They’re also interested in what we found.”

Rosenblatt had once again struggled to his feet, though with far less gusto than for Ruth Zardo. He didn’t exactly curl his lip at the newcomers, he was far too courtly for that. But it was close.

“We haven’t met,” he said. “But I believe we’ve corresponded.”

“Yes” was all Delorme said, while Mary Fraser remained silent, though she did shake the professor’s hand. More, Lacoste felt, out of habit than desire.

Lacoste looked around and spotted a table in the corner, a distance from Beauvoir and the professor.

“I think that one’s free,” she said, and watched as the CSIS agents practically climbed over the other tables to get to it.

Chief Inspector Lacoste had asked Olivier not to mention that she’d called ahead and reserved it.

“They work for CSIS,” said the professor, turning his back on them. “But of course, you know that. I think it would be a stretch to call them intelligence agents.”

“Then what are they?” asked Beauvoir.

“File clerks,” said Rosenblatt.

“How do you know them? And how come they know you?”

“I’ve petitioned the government for the files on Gerald Bull and Project Babylon for years. I was planning to write a major paper on him to mark the twentieth anniversary of his assassination. Those two are in the department that keeps the dossier on Dr. Bull, but they won’t release the information.”

“Why not?”

“That’s a good question, Inspector.”

He glanced behind him, and saw Mary Fraser swiftly drop her eyes. Then Rosenblatt returned his attention to Beauvoir.

“How did they react to the Supergun?”

“They were as surprised as you were,” said Beauvoir.

“I wonder if that’s true.”

“He was brilliant, you know,” Mary Fraser said. “Gerald Bull. The youngest person to get a Ph.D. in Canada. At the age of twenty-two. Twenty-two. He was light years ahead of the rest. But there was something wrong with him. He had no brakes. He drew no line. And if he saw one, he was determined to cross it.”

Isabelle Lacoste listened. The two CSIS agents were taking turns telling the story. It was now clear to Lacoste why they’d been sent.

Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme might not know much about being spies, but they knew a great deal about Gerald Bull. They were tasked with gathering, and guarding, that knowledge. And now they were letting it out.

Or, at least, some of it.

“Dr. Bull worked with the American government, he worked with the Brits. He was involved with the High Altitude Research Project,” said Sean Delorme, speaking, Lacoste noticed, without need of notes. “He was with McGill University in Montréal for a while. And then he moved to Brussels and went out on his own.”

Delorme took his glasses off and polished them with one of the linen napkins.

“It was a disaster,” he said, putting his glasses back on. “Gerald Bull went from being a scientist, a designer, to being an arms dealer.”

“And Canada lost control of him,” said Chief Inspector Lacoste.

“I think any control we thought we had over him was an illusion,” said Mary Fraser. “I think Gerald Bull was always beyond control because he was beyond caring.”

“That man isn’t much better,” said Sean Delorme, indicating Michael Rosenblatt across the bistro. “We have a file on him too, you know. Not very thick, of course. Did he tell you he helped design the Avro Arrow? One of the most sophisticated jet fighters in the world, before the project was scrapped. He’s no stranger to the arms race and arms deals. Don’t be taken in by him.”

“Do you seriously think Gerald Bull could have created the Supergun without the government knowing?” asked Rosenblatt.

“I don’t know,” said Beauvoir. “He seems to have built it outside this village without anyone knowing.”

“Given that that’s the quality of agent at work, do you wonder?” Rosenblatt waved toward Lacoste’s table.

The scientist seemed to want it both ways. The government knew and de facto supported Bull’s research, while at the same time, the government was too incompetent to know anything.

When Beauvoir pointed this out, Rosenblatt shook his head.

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I think the Canadian government supported Dr. Bull’s research, encouraged it even. Poured money into it. Knew perfectly well what he was building. And I think the papers filed away at CSIS will prove all that.”

“But then?” asked Beauvoir.

“But then when Bull suddenly moved to Brussels and cut ties with Canada, they went, pardon the term, ballistic. They panicked. Listen, I’m no fan of Gerald Bull’s ethics. I think he would have done just about anything to make a fortune and prove himself right. To rub the nose of the establishment in what he created.”

“And which establishment was that? The other armament designers?” Beauvoir asked.

“You carry a gun,” said Rosenblatt, looking at the holster attached to Beauvoir’s belt. “Best not to be hypocritical.”

But his smile softened the statement.

“I guess we’re all hypocrites, to a degree,” Rosenblatt admitted. “I worked on ballistics and trajectory, and it wasn’t for the fisheries department.”

Beauvoir smiled, nodded and took a forkful of grilled scallop. It turned out to be delicious. The only possible improvement would be to deep-fry them, he thought.

“We all draw lines,” the professor was saying. “Even those who design weapons. Things that are too horrible to do, even if they can be done.”

“This is a world with nuclear bombs and chemical weapons,” said Beauvoir, putting his fork down. Suddenly no longer hungry. “How much more horrible can it get?”

To his relief, Professor Rosenblatt didn’t answer. Instead the elderly professor looked out the old windowpanes, to the quiet little village. “I can’t believe he built it. He was begged not to, but he thought the other designers were just jealous.”

“Did you know Dr. Bull?” Beauvoir asked.

“As I told you, only by reputation. I wasn’t in his league, but I was a part of that community, even if it was just at the edges, the academic part.”

“And were you jealous?” asked Beauvoir. “Were the other designers jealous?”

Rosenblatt shook his head. “We were frightened.”

“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.