Page 190 of The Grey Wolf
She went to strike him across the face, but he grabbed her wrist. “Non.” He barked. “The only way to save them now is to stop the attack.”
“Shit,” she said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“You with us?” he demanded.
She looked at him with rage. “I’m not on duty today. They won’t let me in.”
“All you need to do is distract them,” said Beauvoir.
It was easier than they dared hope. The head guard knew the junior engineer, and while he was unclear why she was there, he was not alarmed.
He became alarmed when Beauvoir pulled out his gun and forced him and his colleagues into a back room, put them in cuffs, and locked it. But not before disarming them.
Gamache took the guard’s handgun and placed it in his belt.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to do that,” said Manon.
“Some of the guards will be in on it,” said Gamache. “Where’s the command center? We have to shut the plant down.”
“But that won’t work. Not right away. It’ll take at least ten minutes for the circulation to stop completely. And they’ll know it’s shutting down. If they put the poison in then, it’ll still flow through and out into the city.”
Gamache paused for a moment. Thinking.
“Is there a way to close off the pumps themselves?”
“Yes, there’s an emergency protocol, but it can only be done in the pump rooms.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. What’s the protocol?”
“A code.”
“Give it to me.”
He wrote the five numbers and a symbol on his hand. “How will the attackers communicate? Will phones work?”
“No. Too much concrete and metal. There’s a landline in every room.”
“Just internal, or does it go outside?”
“You can make outside calls.”
“Thank God for that,” said Gamache as he met Beauvoir’s eyes.
“You’ll need this to get in.” She handed him her ID card. “Place it against the screen on the outside of the door and it should unlock.”
“Should?”
“Will.”
“Will they know if a pump has been shut down?”
“Everyone in the command center will know. Red lights will start flashing.”
“They must be able to restart the pump,” said Beauvoir.
“True, but that takes hours.”
“Where are these pump rooms exactly?”
