Page 117 of The Grey Wolf
It was as though they were talking about two different people. One Yves Rousseau, the innocent young novitiate. The other Dom Philippe, the elderly cleric, the Abbot in charge of his monastery. Trying to prevent a catastrophe.
“Tell me, Father, do you have a passport?”
“Oui.I go across to a seminary in Vermont from time to time. Why?”
“May I see it?”
“Well, I don’t have it on me, but I can send you a photo.”
“Better if we have a video call. You can show me then. Your birth name is Jean. And your family name?”
“Beauchemin.”
“So the name on the passport would be Jean Beauchemin?” Gamache took it down. Then he looked the elderly priest in the eye. “Did you give your passport to Dom Philippe?”
“No, sir, I did not. But I would have, had he asked.”
Gamache nodded, slowly. He’d do the same thing. Commit a victimless crime to help a friend. Would he lie about it if asked directly? Probably.
He tended to believe Father David but would still check to see if Jean Beauchemin had taken a flight recently.
“May I keep these?” At a nod from his companion, Armand picked up the letters and photo. “I’ll get them back to you as soon as I can.”
He knew why the background of the photo was familiar. He’d been to that tiny fishing outport at the very edge of Québec, where it joined Labrador.
Many who lived there were the descendants of survivors of shipwrecks centuries past. Fishing boats from Newfoundland that had been dashed onto the rocks in storms. Thought lost by their families back home, they had in fact made a new life on that rugged coast.
So desolate was this area that mariners six centuries earlier had called it the Land God Gave to Cain.
A gift to the firstborn. The first murderer. The first to commit a mortal sin.
Staring at the photo of the monk, born and raised in the Land God Gave to Cain, Armand remembered Jean-Guy’s question as they’d left Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
Were they really so sure who was the grey wolf, and who was the black?
CHAPTER27
It took Jean-Guy a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dim bar in the basement of the storied Hay-Adams hotel. At least, he suspected there were stories, though he himself didn’t know any.
The Hay-Adams had a front-row view of the White House. It was, in theatrical and professional-wrestling terms, in the “spit zone.”
The bar itself was windowless. Perhaps, Jean-Guy thought, because the men and women who frequented it would rather forget about the building looming right there. Or maybe there was a more practical reason. It was private. No one could see out, but neither could anyone see in.
There was a reason it was called Off the Record. He could see by the photos on the walls that this subterranean haunt was a discreet meeting place for Washington’s political class.
It was where apparent adversaries downed stiff drinks and shared bowls of peanuts and information.
Where journalists met contacts.
Where intelligence agents met informants.
They sat in the blood red chairs, surrounded by burgundy walls, and whispered their confidences.
“I’ll have a Shirley Temple, please.”
The waiter, who’d clearly heard and seen it all, merely asked if Beauvoir wanted one maraschino cherry or two.
“Two please.”
