Page 194 of The Grey Wolf
It was so surprising that one of the gunmen froze. The other did not. The man had pulled a Magnum. Not what guards would be issued. Bringing his weapon around, he only had time to aim before Beauvoir fired and the man dropped.
There was sudden and complete pandemonium.
For just a moment, between the gunfire and the flashing red lights and the screams, Beauvoir lost track of the second gunman.
“Get down,” he shouted, afraid the gunman was about to open fire. But all he heard were the shouts of the panicked workers as they dropped to the floor.
Beauvoir saw the door slowly closing. Leaping to it, he yanked it open, but the man was nowhere in sight. Instinct told him to run after the gunman. If he got to the others, warned the others…
But instead, Beauvoir backed up and locked the door.
Manon was at the bank of controls. “Pump One is offline,” she confirmed.
There were monitors with numbers and graphs, but others, where security cameras would be, were blank.
“Shut the place down. Now!”
“But shouldn’t we wait? Gamache said—”
“Now!”
The red lights were flashing, and the people splayed on the floor were pleading. One was shouting at Manon. Demanding to know what she was doing.
“Quiet!”
They swung their eyes to Beauvoir and shut up.
“Hands on your heads. Don’t move. Don’t speak.”
“I need to figure this out,” muttered Manon. “Something isn’t right.”
“For God’s sake, hurry.”
Beauvoir went to the dead man and picked up his gun, then went through his pockets. No ID, no phone.
“You shit-head.” Manon turned to the senior engineer, now lying on the floor. “You sabotaged it.”
“What does that mean?” demanded Beauvoir.
“It means he threw a mathematical wrench into the works. A virus that’s activated if one of the pumps is offline. It’s their fail-safe. We can’t shut the plant down.”
Beauvoir went over to the man and placed the gun to his temple. “Fix it.”
“He can’t,” said Manon.
“Of course he can. He put it in, he can take it out.”
“No, it’s a rotating code. It’ll take days to get it out.”
“Fuck.” Beauvoir’s mind raced. “Can Gamache still shut down Pump Two?”
She looked at him and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Fuck.
He needed to warn Gamache. But their phones didn’t work here. Beauvoir looked at the locked door. He needed to leave. To get to Pump Two. To get to Gamache. But he couldn’t. He needed to hold the command center.
There was no way to get a message to the Chief. He looked around, frantic. He needed to call Forrest and get the team there. A phone. There was a phone on a desk. A landline.
