Page 174 of The Grey Wolf
“Sanctuary.”
He instructed Caron’s assistant to stay in the car, then nodded to Beauvoir, who reluctantly gave the man the keys.
“Just in case,” said Gamache, and the young man understood.
They started toward the small church, but just then, an urgent flagged message appeared. It was from Isabelle.
As Gamache read, his face grew even more stern.
“Brother Robert’s dead. He fell, or more probably was thrown, from the wall of Grande Chartreuse.”
“Shit. That means he can’t tell us anything.”
“That means the cleanup has begun,” said Gamache. “And the attack is about to begin, if it hasn’t already.”
He began walking quickly toward the chapel, where their last hope lay.
Then broke into a run.
CHAPTER38
“There’s a back door,” Beauvoir instructed Sargent Gauthier. “Cover it.”
The RCMP officer headed around the church, drawing his weapon as he ran.
Gamache and Beauvoir mounted the front steps, careful not to make any noise. The shadows were long, reaching out toward them from the forest. Beauvoir pulled his gun, and when Gamache nodded, he yanked open the large door and the two men went through.
“Bonjour, Armand.”
Claude Dussault crossed himself, then slowly, methodically, moved his flashlight over and around the body of Brother Robert. Behind him the monks of Grande Chartreuse, led by the Abbot, were standing in a semicircle, chanting prayers.
There was nothing clutched in the dead man’s hands. Nothing under his fingernails. No signs the monk had fought for his life.
If he was thrown from the wall—Dussault looked up and saw Lacoste looking down—then it was probably from behind. A shove. It would not take much.
There was no evidence. No reason to suspect murder. Beyond the fact the dead man was the key to stopping a terrorist attack. Which seemed enough. That and what the Abbot had said.
There was no reason to be up there. No one had been, it seemed, in decades.
Which was why it would make a perfect place for a clandestine meeting, and murder.
Isabelle Lacoste played the flashlight of her phone over the stone floor of the turret. It was thick with bird droppings and tiny skeletons of hatchlings that must have fallen out of the nest.
There were sticks and twigs and leaves that had either blown in or were brought there by brooding birds building their nests. Not realizing that it was too high. The wind too strong. Their babies too vulnerable.
Grande Chartreuse had been built when monasteries were also fortifications. From the rampart Isabelle Lacoste could see into the distant mountains. She could see an enemy coming. Though she knew she did not have to look nearly that far.
Dropping her eyes, she took a photo of the monk who had fallen from such a great height. And the monks around him praying for his soul. One of whom had fallen even further.
The friendly voice froze Armand and raised the hairs on his forearms.
He would recognize it anywhere. Anytime. Though it was more mature, more melodic, with more resonance than that first time, which was also the last time, they’d met. Years ago.
Beauvoir had his gun clasped in both hands and was pointing it at the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, and the Abbot of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. His body tense, his stare intense.
Instinctively, Jean-Guy had stepped slightly in front of the unarmed Gamache.
Armand had stopped dead in his tracks. The sound of her voice had paralyzed him, just for an instant. But for a cop, that was literally a lifetime. It was how long it took to pull a trigger. It was what he was afraid would happen. What he thought he’d prepared for. But apparently not quite enough.
