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Exhaust from emergency vehicles hung in the frigid air.

Gamache’s supervisor told him to stay by the ambulance while she tried to find out what had happened. What was still happening. She came back none the wiser, but considerably paler.

“There’re tactical units outside the building,” she told him. “They’re armed.”

“But they haven’t gone in?”

“No.”

The information they did pick up was contradictory and garbled. Even a newly minted Sûreté agent knew the one thing to avoid in an emergency was this. Confusion. But it too hung thick in the air.

There was a lone gunman inside, they heard. There were two gunmen. Three. A gang of them.

He was dead. He was still shooting.

Students started running from the building, shouting for help. Gamache and others on the scene moved forward, wrapping the dazed and panicked young men in blankets and checking for wounds as the senior cops peppered them with questions. Digging for, desperate for, solid information.

And still the tactical squad waited. For what?

Finally, the word came. The gunman had shot himself. There were multiple casualties. They could go in.

Armand and his supervisor moved quickly through the outer doors, not far behind the armed cops, and were immediately hit by a thick wall of sound. Screams of pain. Cries, pleas for help. Orders shouted by the police.

And not just orders. There were warnings now.

There might be another attacker hiding in a classroom. Armed. Maybe with hostages.

Classrooms might be booby-trapped with nail bombs.

Armand’s heart was pounding, his eyes wide. He tried to control his breathing, to remain calm. To keep his mind clear. To remember his training.

But there was a shriek inside his head. Leave. Leave. Run away. Go home. You shouldn’t even be here. Go.

He’d never known fear like this. Never knew such terror existed.

At each classroom, he expected to see the man. The gun.

At every door he threw open, he braced for the impact. Of bullets or nails. Of splintered wood and shards of glass.

Then, when that didn’t happen, when the room was empty except for overturned desks and chairs, he moved on. To the next door, the next classroom. Down, down the long hallway, he and his supervisor ran. Following the screams. Throwing open doors. Scanning. Every detail preternaturally sharp and clear.

Then, finally, they found them. Lying against the wall of their classroom. The bodies. Of the dead and wounded. It was suddenly very quiet. The wounded had no energy left to call for help. To even moan in pain. They were just trying to keep breathing.

He went to the first person clearly alive, though bleeding heavily.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he knelt beside her, his eyes and hands moving quickly over her blood-soaked clothing. Trying to find the wound.

“Nathalie,” she whispered.

“Nathalie, my name is Armand. I’m here to help.” He pulled bandages from his kit. “Where does it hurt?”

She couldn’t tell him. She was numb, going into shock.

He found one wound. Two. Three.

This woman, barely more than a kid, had been shot four times.

He put a compression bandage on the worst of her injuries, talking the whole time. Forcing his voice to be calm. Telling her she was going to be fine.