All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #16) - Louise Penny Page 0,115
link.”
“I’m going to write Mrs. McGillicuddy,” said Reine-Marie, “and find out if Stephen knew the Pinot family, and especially Alain Pinot.”
The four of them sat in individual pools of light, their fingers tap-tap-tapping on the keyboards, like the soft patter of feet, sneaking up on a killer.
* * *
Daniel stared at the screen, jotted some notes. Then he looked up another file. And made more notes.
He’d been at it for almost an hour, exploring avenues and dead ends. Eliminating possibilities, narrowing options. He’d started by trying to track down the numbered companies, with limited success.
Then he went into the sell and buy orders, the ones stored for execution Monday morning. There were thousands. Listed not by investor, but by investment.
He needed to scroll through them all. His eyes were bloodshot, his concentration wavering.
He stopped. Went back. Something he’d passed needed another look.
Daniel stared at the screen.
A buy order had popped up. Placed by Stephen Horowitz late Friday, to be executed first thing Monday morning.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
He’d found out what Stephen was going to do with his billions. But it didn’t tell him why.
So absorbed was Daniel that he didn’t hear the click of the door behind him.
The rapid tapping of his fingers on the keyboard masked the soft approach of footsteps.
He didn’t hear the murmured voice, advising the weekend supervisor to go back to his office. And stay there.
But he did feel the warm breath on his neck.
“Neodymium is fairly common,” Madame Arbour read off her phone. “In China. Less so elsewhere. The find in Patagonia would be significant.”
“Why?” asked Gamache. Though he believed he knew the answer.
Geopolitics. China was an authoritarian regime that could be as thin-skinned as it was brutal. Agreements were vulnerable to political machinations. Regime change. Subject to trade wars and tariffs. And a Western government that actually put human rights above profit.
“The supply could not be guaranteed,” said Madame Arbour. “But a European company owning a rare earth mine in South America would be able to guarantee delivery.”
“You mentioned magnets. Is that neodymium’s main use?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds harmless.”
“You’re thinking of a normal magnet. But look at this.”
She hit play, and Gamache watched as a piece of metal shot through a cantaloupe and slammed into a metal sheet.
“Here’s another one.”
It showed a grown man—he looked like a weight lifter—trying to separate two steel rods stuck together.
“Can you go back to the other video?” After rewatching it, he said, “A neodymium magnet did that?”
“Yes, and a small one.”
“Can it be used as a weapon?” It sure looked like that shard would pass through a human body.
“It doesn’t say. In an earlier search I didn’t find any reference to rare earth minerals as weapons, but they might’ve found a new use. Listen to this,” Séverine read, “a neodymium magnet can lift a thousand times its own weight.”
“But it also says here,” Gamache was reading off her phone, “that there’s a problem with neodymium.”
“More like a caveat. When heated or frozen, it breaks down. And if under stress, it can shatter.”
“So it’s unstable?”
“Not if it’s used properly.”
“And what would those uses be?” asked Gamache.
She scrolled down. “Microphones, loudspeakers, computer hard drives. All the things we already know.”
“You mentioned cutting-edge telecommunications earlier. That’s exactly the sort of investment Stephen would notice.”
Gamache leaned back in the comfortable chair, staring at the small screen. It didn’t make sense. Nothing they’d discovered was, as far as he could tell, unethical, never mind illegal.
So why the secrecy? What were they hiding?
From what they could tell, GHS was mining the rare earth element, then shipping the raw ore to refineries. And then?
He took off his glasses and narrowed his eyes. “Can you go back to that second video?”
She did, and this time played it all the way through. The strongman finally managed to separate the bars, after a struggle that clearly left him embarrassed.
“The nickels,” Gamache said.
“Pardon?” asked Madame Arbour.
His irises were moving, as though he was watching a film no one else could see.
Then he looked at his watch.
Eight ten. Almost time to make his way to Place de la Concorde and his meeting with Claude Dussault. He had one stop to make first.
But what to do with Séverine Arbour?
Take her with him, or leave her here in the Lutetia?
If she came with him and she turned out to be a spy planted in their midst, he’d be putting them all at risk. But if she wasn’t a spy and he left her in the bar, something awful might happen to her.