give in to distractions.”
“Distractions?” said Toussaint. “You make this sound like a noise off to the left.”
“I’m not trivializing this shipment, the decision or the consequences, Superintendent.”
He glanced over, briefly, at the schematic on the wall. Drawn to the dark face.
“Never lose sight of the goal,” he said, returning his gaze to his subordinates. “Never.” He paused to let that sink in. “Never.”
They shifted, but began to stand a little straighter.
“Every other officer in your position has abandoned the strategy,” continued Gamache. “They’ve bailed. Not because they were weak, but because the consequences were so great. There was a screaming need for action. And it is screaming.” He put his finger on the fresh mark. “And it is a need. Eighty kilos of fentanyl. We need to stop it.”
They nodded.
“But we can’t.”
He took a long, deep breath and focused briefly on the lights of the city behind them. And beyond that, in the long view, the mountains. And the valley. And the village.
And the goal.
Then he brought his eyes, and his thoughts, back to the conference room.
“We monitor,” said Chief Superintendent Gamache, his voice brisk now. “From a distance. We do not interfere. We do not stop the shipment. D’accord?”
There was just a moment’s hesitation before first one, then all said, “D’accord.”
Agreed. It was grudging, but it was given.
Gamache turned to Superintendent Toussaint, who had been silent. She looked down at the map. Then over at the chart on the wall. Then back to her boss.
“D’accord, patron.”
Gamache gave a curt nod, then turned to Beauvoir. “A word?”
Once back in his office, with the door firmly closed, he turned square to Beauvoir.
“Sir?” said the younger man.
“You agree with Superintendent Toussaint, don’t you.”
It was not a question.
“I think there must be a way to stop the shipment without letting them know that we’ve worked it out.”
“There might be,” agreed Gamache.
“We’ve seized smaller shipments,” said Beauvoir, taking advantage of what he saw as an opening, a softening of his boss’s position.
“That’s true. But they were headed through the traditional routes, crossing the border at a predictable place. If all seizures stopped, the cartels would know something was up. This one is huge and almost certainly headed right to the place they think we don’t know about. If they trust the route with this much fentanyl, it means they feel it’s safe, Jean-Guy. But it only works if we allow them to believe it.”
“You’re not saying this is good news.”
“It’s what we hoped would happen. You know that. Look, I know this is particularly difficult for you—”
“Why does it always come down to that?” demanded Beauvoir.
“Because we can’t separate our personal experiences from our professional choices,” said Gamache. “If we think we can, we’re deluding ourselves. We have to admit it, examine our motives, and then make a rational decision.”
“You think I’m being irrational? You’re the one who’s always accusing me of not trusting my instincts. Well, you know what they’re telling me now? Not just my instincts, but yes, my experience?”
Beauvoir was all but shouting at Gamache.
“This is a huge mistake,” said Beauvoir, lowering his voice to a growl. “Allowing that much fentanyl into the U.S. could change the course of a generation. You want to know about my personal stake? Here it is. You’ve never been addicted,” he said. “You have no idea what it’s like. And opioids? Designer drugs? They get right into you. Change you. Turn you into something horrible. Everyone keeps repeating, ‘eighty kilos.’” He waved toward the door and the conference room across the hall. “What’s heading for the border isn’t a weight, isn’t a number. There’s no measure for the misery that’s heading our way. A slow and wretched death. And not just for the addicts you’re about to create, but how about all the other lives that’ll be ruined? How many people, alive today, healthy today, will die, sir, or kill? Because of your ‘rational’ decision?”
“You’re right,” said Gamache. “You’re absolutely right.”
He waved toward the sitting area of his office. After a moment’s hesitation, as though weighing if it was a trap, Jean-Guy took his usual chair, sitting stiffly on the edge.
Gamache sat back, trying to get comfortable. Abandoning that, he too sat forward.
“There’s a theory that Winston Churchill knew about the German bombing of the English city of Coventry before it happened,” he said. “And he did nothing to stop it. The bombing killed hundreds of men and women and children.”
Beauvoir’s tense face slackened. But he said nothing.
“The British had cracked the German code,” Gamache