Penny, Louise - All the Devils Are Here

“You have to get the evidence first,” said Armand, and told them where he’d hidden it.

“Aren’t you coming?” Dussault asked.

“No.” He turned to Daniel. “You’re going in my place.”

After he told his son what needed to be done, he said, “Thank God you’re a banker. This has to be done exactly right, and you’re the one to do it. None better.”

Daniel turned a furious red and nodded. “It’ll be done.”

“What’re you going to do? Sit on a bench and sip Pernod?” asked Claude.

“Why do people keep asking me that?” said Armand. “No. I’m going to meet my granddaughter.”

Armand had stopped at their apartment for a quick shower, a change of clothing, and two extra-strength aspirin for his splitting headache. In fact, his whole body hurt.

Except his heart.

He’d called Reine-Marie and told her what had happened. She in turn had told Jean-Guy, but Annie had been resting.

“Dad? You’ve seen her?” Annie now asked, her voice thick. “Idola.”

“Idola,” her father whispered. “Perfect. She’s perfect.”

He looked at Jean-Guy. “May I?”

Idola’s father got up and carefully handed his daughter to her grandfather, looking him in the eyes. “We’re safe?”

“Oui.”

Armand cradled her, then reluctantly handed the baby back to her father.

Jean-Guy sat down and, closing his eyes, he rocked his daughter, feeling her heart against his. And her tiny feet resting against the jagged scar across his belly.

Daniel walked around the table to stand behind Alain Pinot. He bent down and whispered, “You’re in my seat.”

“What’s this about?” demanded the CEO.

“He sold his place on the board,” said Daniel.

“That’s not true,” said Pinot. “I have no idea who this man is.”

“Of course you do, sir. You tried to have me killed just a few minutes ago.”

“That’s absurd,” said Pinot, appealing to his fellow board members.

“You conspired to murder the Chief Archivist, the Chief Librarian, and one of GHS’s own engineers, Madame Séverine Arbour,” said Claude Dussault. “And you were party to negligence by GHS Engineering that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands.”

There was an immediate uproar in the room amid calls for the chair to do something.

“Quiet,” Dussault demanded.

He walked them through what had happened.

The derailment of the train in Colombia. The questions asked by the journalist. Her visit to the water treatment plant, and the old mine. Her subsequent murder in Patagonia. The recent attack on the financier Stephen Horowitz. The murder of Alexander Plessner.

“But why?” asked the former President of France.

Claude Dussault concisely, precisely, told them about the mine. The neodymium. The ore secretly shipped back. And used in planes that crashed.

As he listed the tragedies, the Prefect felt his control slipping. His voice rising. Bridges that collapsed. Trains that derailed and elevators that failed.

Until, at the final example, he lost all composure.

“And nuclear power plants.”

Pounding the table with both fists so that the board members startled, he shouted, his voice almost a scream. “For God’s sake,” he pleaded. “What. Were. You. Thinking?”

Tears had sprung to his eyes, and he had to stop himself. Bring himself back under control.

“You knew. Some of you knew.” He looked at Madame Roquebrune, who held his eyes without apology. Then to Alain Pinot. “You piece of shit, you knew. And you’d have let it happen.”

He saw the blood drain from the room. And he wondered how many of them were thinking of those who’d died and might still. Or of themselves.

“Stephen Horowitz came to you with his concerns a few years ago, didn’t he?” Daniel said to the CEO, giving the Prefect a chance to catch his breath. “You promised to look into it, but instead you covered it up. And when he realized that, and collected evidence himself, you began a campaign against him. Ending with an attempt on his life Friday night.”

“That’s a lie,” said Eugénie Roquebrune. “Slander.”

“The truth,” said Claude Dussault. “Monsieur Horowitz sold his entire art collection. Raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and with that money he bought Monsieur Pinot’s seat on this board.”

The CEO was shaking her head and smiling. “You’re misinformed. The places on the board are given freely. They’re not for sale.”

“But the stock options that go with the seat are. They’re not supposed to be, there was an understanding that they’re never sold. Stephen knew he had to approach someone who was especially greedy.”

All eyes turned to Alain Pinot.

He looked at his fellow board members and colored.

“Okay, yes, he approached me. Because we’re old friends. He was like a father, a mentor to me. Most of you know that.”

There were some nods, but most remained stony-faced.

“He wanted on the board, but I refused, of course,” said Pinot. “I’d heard rumors about his Nazi past, and I knew that would tarnish GHS and everyone associated with it.”

The mention of “Nazi” had the desired effect. Daniel and Dussault could feel the tide turn. Could see support for Pinot rising. There were murmurs of agreement.

“Well done.”

“Quite right.”

“ Merci.”

“Stephen Horowitz was no Nazi,” snapped Daniel. “Just the opposite. He worked for the Resistance.”

“Right,” said one member. “And so did Pétain.”

The damage had been done. Doubt had entered the room.

“I have proof,” said Pinot, pressing his advantage. “A file on Horowitz you yourself found, Monsieur le Préfet, hidden in the Archives nationales.”

“It wasn’t proof,” said Claude. “Far from it.” He looked at the CEO. “You used it to try to blackmail Stephen Horowitz into stopping his investigation.”

“He came to me with his wild ideas,” said Madame Roquebrune. “Poor man was clearly in the early stages of dementia. I took him for dinner, reassured him, and we parted friends. Or so I thought. But he kept coming back with more and more crazy accusations. I’m sorry you believed, Monsieur le Préfet, what amounts to a sad old man’s delusions.”

Claude Dussault pressed on. “Stephen Horowitz and Alexander Plessner worked for years, and finally had their proof. It’s all there. In that file.”

The CEO glanced down at it, then looked around the table. “I’m afraid the Prefect here might also need to be tested. This is a dossier on the number of handmade nails in Calais in 1523.”

That was met with laughter, and relief.

“Does it not look a little thick to you,” said Dussault. “Must’ve been a lot of nails. No, that was found this morning where Monsieur Horowitz had hidden it. Inside are the internal GHS memos and emails, schematics. External investigations that were suppressed. Internal reports that were suppressed. As well as the notes of the Agence France-Presse reporter murdered in Patagonia.”

“This is ludicrous,” said Madame Roquebrune. “If you have any proof, I’ll be happy to take a look at it. Make an appointment with my assistant. In the meantime, this is a board meeting and we have important business to go over. Guards,” she called. “Remove these people.”

There was no movement.

“No one’s coming,” said Dussault. “And Monsieur Gamache has a perfect right to be here. He now sits on the board.”

“He does not. I never sold him my place,” Pinot repeated.

“Then what’s this?” Daniel put a paper onto the table. “Stephen put this in that file with the rest of the evidence.”

Pinot looked at it and felt light-headed.