The Nature Of The Beast Part 60

"Wait," said Cohen when they reached the car and the guard was about to transfer the prisoner into the backseat.

He brought out his device.

Still nothing.

Cohen replaced it in his pocket and nodded to his friend.

Lacoste tried again, this time punching in the numbers herself, carefully.

Cohen's phone rang. And rang.

After the fifth ring, she hung up. It hadn't even switched over to voice mail.

Then she tried texting. It bounced back.

"Well?" asked Gamache, as he, Beauvoir and shortly after them an out-of-breath Professor Rosenblatt arrived in the Incident Room.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?" Beauvoir demanded.

"He's not answering," she said. "Not to the phone and the text bounced back."

"What could that mean?" Beauvoir asked, but Gamache did not. He knew what it could mean.

John Fleming was locked into the backseat of the secure vehicle, handcuffed to the metal plate, restraints around his arms and legs.

The guard tested them, tugging on them to make sure they were secure.

"He's all yours," said Cohen's friend, handing him the keys. "You'll have to sign for him."

He gave Cohen his own device and indicated where he needed to sign.

Cohen did. "That's new."

"I guess we got them after you left. Dedicated devices and network. Can't be hacked."

In the backseat Fleming smiled. You can guard against anything, except, of course, a betrayal.

"Merci," said Cohen, shaking the guard's hand. "I'll be back in a few hours."

"No rush."

"Something's blocking the transmission," said Professor Rosenblatt.

"What does that mean?" asked Gamache.

"It means your young agent might not even realize he's not getting messages. All the bars would light up, everything would look normal, and is, but the messages wouldn't be registering."

"How do we get around it?" Lacoste asked.

"You can't. It's not a software issue," said Rosenblatt. "It's the hardware. He'd have to have one of their devices."

"Call the SHU," said Gamache. "Get him back."

Cohen put the car in gear, but kept his foot on the brake.

His device was sitting in the cupholder.

"Let's go," said Fleming. "What're you waiting for?"

Picking up his device, Cohen decided to call Chief Inspector Lacoste, to confirm. He punched her contact number and saw Dialing on the screen.

And then the message Unable to Connect.

Of course, he thought. She's in Three Pines. There's no cell phone service.

"Come on," said Fleming. "You're wasting time. Your boss won't like that."

Cohen put his phone down and the car rolled forward. And stopped.

"Now what?"

Cohen picked up his device and called the landline in the Incident Room.

Dialing. Dialing.

Unable to Connect.

That was strange.

"Time's a-wasting," said Fleming. "Every moment counts. You know that."

But his soft, flawed voice held an edge of anxiety.

Agent Cohen looked in the rearview mirror at the glowing eyes and eager, hungry face. Then he looked down at his device. All five bars were lit up. The network was connected. And yet there were no messages. None at all. From anyone, in over forty-five minutes.

And then he remembered his friend's new device.

With hands that trembled so badly he almost dropped the phone, he punched into the utilities mode, took out the penitentiary code, put in his own, and the device started lighting up.

It vibrated, the red light flashed. And it started ringing.

In the backseat, John Fleming saw this and started pulling, yanking, on the chains binding him to the vehicle.

The operator put Lacoste through to the guard room. The phone rang, and was picked up, just as her line indicated an incoming.

She hung up and clicked over and for a moment all she heard, loud enough so that Gamache, Beauvoir and even Professor Rosenblatt, sitting at the next desk, heard ...

A shriek.

Gamache's face went white and his eyes widened, as the unG.o.dly noise filled the Incident Room.

"Chief?"

They heard the young voice, straining to be heard over the scream.

"Is that you?" Cohen yelled.

"Where are you?" Lacoste shouted.

"I can't hear you. I have Fleming."

"Take him back," yelled Lacoste. "We have the plans. Take him back."

All they heard now was the shriek. And then it descended into a growl.

Some rough beast.

"Adam?" Gamache leaned into the phone, shouting, "Can you hear me?"

And then ...

"I hear you, Monsieur Gamache," shouted Adam Cohen. "He's going back."

CHAPTER 42.

"What'll happen to the Supergun?" Reine-Marie asked. "Now that the plans are gone."

They were gathered in the bistro, the Gamaches, Lacoste, Jean-Guy, Clara, Myrna, Brian, Ruth and Monsieur Beliveau. Professor Rosenblatt was sitting in a comfortable armchair, nursing a large cognac.

Olivier had locked the door, apologizing to his other patrons, "Desole, but this is a private gathering."

The sun had long ago set, the night had drawn in. They sat around the fireplace, their faces lit by the glow.

"It'll be taken apart, and taken away," said Chief Inspector Lacoste.

"To be rea.s.sembled somewhere else?" Monsieur Beliveau asked.

"Maybe," said Gamache. "But with the plans gone, well, they'll have quite a time of it. And unfortunately the firing mechanism seems to be missing again."

Beauvoir and Lacoste looked at him, then looked away.

"The firing mechanism's missing?" asked Brian. "Where'd it go?"

"I have no idea," said Armand with a smile.

"Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme," said Myrna. "They aren't CSIS?"

"I don't know who they are," said Lacoste.

"Well, I'm sure they won't get far," said Clara.

"What do you mean?" asked Lacoste.

"Well, you're going after them, aren't you?"

"For what?"

Clara looked dumbfounded. "Well, for threatening to kill the professor and Armand and Jean-Guy, for starters."

"Delorme pulled a gun on us, yes," said Armand. "But stood down. No one was hurt. Beyond that they did nothing wrong."

"Isn't that enough?" asked Gabri.

"We have to choose our battles," said Beauvoir. "And if there's a trial, we'd have to explain about Bull and the plans-"

"And why you burned them," said Gamache. He knew why Beauvoir had dropped them in the fire. It was a father's instinct. Jean-Guy would rather die than have his child born into a world that contained Gerald Bull's monstrosity.

"It's a dangerous game you're playing, letting them go," said Professor Rosenblatt.

"It's a dangerous world," said Armand. "Even nine-year-old boys know that."

"But, but-" Clara sputtered.

"But they killed Antoinette," said Brian. "And Laurent. They must have. They all but admitted it by threatening to kill you too, for those G.o.dd.a.m.ned plans."

He waved toward the fireplace, where the plans were no longer even ash. Project Babylon had disappeared into the atmosphere.

"But how did Mary Fraser and Delorme know Laurent had found the gun?" Gabri asked. "They weren't here. Someone must've told them."